Ukraine will not accept a bad peace deal, Zelensky says
President Volodymyr Zelensky said he would rather accept no deal than pressure Ukrainians into a bad one, insisting that any settlement to end the war must ensure a dignified, lasting peace — and clear security guarantees to prevent Russia from attacking again.
In an interview with The Atlantic published Feb. 12, Zelensky said Ukraine is not an obstacle to peace and that Kyiv has tried to show it is negotiating in good faith by backing U.S. proposals meant to move talks forward.
"The tactic we chose is for the Americans not to think that we want to continue the war," Zelensky said. "That's why we started supporting their proposals in any format that speeds things along."
At the same time, Zelensky said he will not accept any deal he views as demeaning to Ukraine.
When asked to assess the battlefield situation, he insisted that "Ukraine is not losing," and stressed that Ukraine's willingness to engage in peace talks should not be mistaken for a readiness to accept any agreement, especially a bad one.
Zelensky said Ukraine's core demand has not changed: security guarantees from the United States and Europe that would take effect once a ceasefire is in place. Without that, he said, a ceasefire would simply allow Russia to regroup and attack again.
He acknowledged that progress on those guarantees has lagged, saying basic questions remain unanswered and that U.S. responses so far have been too vague for him to accept. "We need all of this to be written out," Zelensky said.
The president also addressed the issue of elections. "No one is clinging to power," he said. "I am ready for elections. But for that we need security, guarantees of security, a cease-fire."
A source in the President's Office, speaking to the Kyiv Independent, recently sought to dispel rumors that Zelensky planned to announce presidential elections or a referendum on a possible peace deal with Russia on Feb. 24, the four-year anniversary of the full-scale invasion.
"He wasn't planning to," the source said when asked whether the president would make such an announcement on Feb. 24. "When there's no security, there's nothing else."
Zelensky's remarks come as talks involving Ukraine, Russia, and the United States have appeared to stall in recent days amid uncertainty over whether Russia will participate.
"We've never been against ending the war. It's the Russians who have shown they are not ready for a dialogue,” he said.
