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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has admitted that Ukrainian forces are unable to remove Russian troops from the land they occupied in Crimea and the east of the country.
The Ukrainian president said diplomacy was the only option left to force Moscow to withdraw its military, although he vowed that Kiev would never recognize Russian rule.
"We cannot give up our territories. The Constitution of Ukraine forbids us to do this. De facto, these territories are now controlled by the Russians. We do not have the strength to take them back. We can only count on diplomatic pressure from the international community to force Putin to sit down at the negotiating table ," he said in an interview with the French newspaper Le Parisien.
Zelensky made similar comments in an interview with Sky News' chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay last month, in which he suggested a ceasefire deal could be reached if the Ukrainian territory he controls could be taken "under the umbrella of NATO ", allowing him to negotiate the return of other parts later "through diplomatic channels".
Zelensky said NATO membership would have to be offered to unoccupied parts of the country in order to end the "hot war phase", as long as NATO's invitation itself recognizes the internationally recognized borders of Ukraine. He appeared to accept that the occupied eastern parts of the country would be left out of such a deal for the time being.
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