“The United States has expressed a number of fairly interesting, I would say useful, ideas and proposals,” he said.
The proposals have not yet been implemented, Ushakov added.
Security guarantees from the United States could be offered to Ukraine only if its Defense Forces withdraw from Donbas, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an interview with Reuters on March 25.
The guarantees could be finalized at a high level “once Ukraine is ready to withdraw its troops from Donbas,” he said, warning that such a move would undermine not only Ukraine’s security but also Europe’s by giving Russia stronger defensive positions it failed to secure on the battlefield.
The claim was rejected as false by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on March 27.
Ukraine sought to secure guarantees before the end of the war, but the United States indicated this would only be possible after hostilities conclude, Zelenskyy said during an online briefing with journalists on March 28.
“This sounds quite clear: we can receive security guarantees directly from the United States — not before a ceasefire, not before the end of the war, but after our troops withdraw from Donbas, which is considered a condition for ending the war,” he said.
Ukraine’s position on territorial issues remains unchanged, Zelenskyy has repeatedly emphasized. Kyiv will not agree to cede the Donetsk and Luhansk regions to Russia.
Leaving Donbas would endanger Ukraine’s security and open the way for further Russian advances toward the country’s center, he said in an interview with Corriere della Sera published on March 3.