At a time when the Russian-Ukrainian negotiations have made significant progress, Ukrainian President Zelenskiy rarely admits that Ukraine cannot join NATO and is ready to hold talks with Russian President Putin.
According to CCTV News, on March 14, local time, The Ukrainian presidential office adviser Alestovich said that Ukraine and Russia are expected to sign a peace agreement within one to two weeks at the earliest, and a peace agreement at the latest in May. As far as the Ukrainian side is concerned, the Russian side's claims on the territory are unacceptable, but the Ukrainian side is ready to continue negotiations on the remaining issues. A day earlier, Slutsky, a representative of the Russian side of the Russian-Ukrainian negotiators, said that if we compare the positions of the Russian and Ukrainian delegations at the beginning of the negotiations with the current positions of the two sides, we can see that the negotiations have made significant progress. This development could quickly develop into a common position of the two delegations and lay the groundwork for the signing of the agreement.
At a time when the Russian-Ukrainian negotiations are making positive progress, Zelenskiy rarely acknowledges the fact that Ukraine cannot join NATO. On March 15, local time, Zelenskiy said in an online meeting with the leader of the NATO Expeditionary Force Joint Force that it needs to be admitted that Ukraine cannot join NATO. Although the phrase "NATO's doors are open to Ukraine" has been heard for years, Ukraine cannot join, a reality that Ukrainians must acknowledge. On the same day, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Veleschuk said Zelenskiy was ready to negotiate with Putin, and that the Ukrainian people had given him full powers to negotiate in order to protect Ukraine's national interests. The first issue in the negotiations is a ceasefire, "which is the beginning of all political negotiations and must be immediately ceasefired".
In fact, for the question of "joining NATO", earlier, Zelenskiy had repeatedly asked NATO members for answers, but none of them gave a clear reply, so much so that Zelenskiy bluntly said that "NATO has abandoned Ukraine.". Later, in an interview with the American ABC, he claimed that after understanding NATO's reluctance to accept Ukraine, he was no longer entangled in joining NATO. However, what is the actual result? On the one hand, zelenskiy's government claims that it is ready to negotiate with Putin, and on the other hand, knowing that it cannot join NATO, it still pins its hopes on NATO and reiterates its call for NATO to establish a no-fly zone in Ukraine. Obviously, from this performance, it is not difficult to see that Zelenskiy is still very reluctant about Ukraine's inability to join NATO.
In the context of the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian negotiations, Zelenskiy's behavior does not rule out, to some extent, that it will bring some variables to the negotiations. For example, on the issue of "establishing a no-fly zone", Putin has bluntly warned that Russia will regard any country's attempt to establish a no-fly zone in Ukraine as a war against Russia. Russia has not yet encountered this situation and hopes that it will not happen.
For Putin's warning, NATO is naturally very jealous in its heart. So in the face of Zelenskiy's repeated appeals, NATO did not hesitate to give a negative answer, before NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg had stressed that NATO is not part of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, they need to avoid the escalation of this conflict and spread beyond Ukraine, if the establishment of a no-fly zone means that NATO fighters will enter Ukrainian airspace, and then by shooting down Russian warplanes to implement, that is likely to lead to a full-scale war affecting the whole of Europe, NATO does not seek war with Russia. It can be seen that it is more realistic for the Zelenskiy government to focus on negotiations.