At talks with the U.S. in March, Ukraine was ready to give up 20% of its territory

The Ukrainian delegation, in talks with U.S. counterparts in Riyadh in March, for the first time said it was ready to give up 20 percent of its territory in exchange for peace.

The New York Times reported this, citing sources.

“For the first time, [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky, through his people, said that for the sake of peace he is ready to give up 20 percent of his country,” a U.S. official who asked to remain anonymous said.

At the time, U.S. delegation representative Michael Waltz asked Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council Secretary Rustem Umerov to mark the future border. Umerov drew a line along the line of contact, circled the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, and cut off the Kinburn Spit. According to him, control over the spit would allow Ukrainian ships to enter the port of Mykolaiv.

Earlier, Zelensky’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak said Kyiv would not give up its territories in exchange for peace. Russian President Vladimir Putin, for his part, emphasized the territorial issue. He said that either Ukraine’s armed forces would withdraw from the territories they currently hold and fighting would stop, or the Russian army would achieve that by force.