Zelensky reveals Victory Plan, calls for NATO membership

The second point in the plan, Zelensky said, is a permanent strengthening of Ukraine’s security through guarantees from partners that their weapons can be used for strikes inside of Russia and that Ukraine’s neighbors will conduct joint air defense operations to protect Ukraine’s skies. It will also allow for continued operations inside sovereign Russian territory to ensure buffer zones that protect Ukraine, he said.

The third is a nonnuclear deterrence plan, and the fourth guarantees economic security and protection of Ukrainian natural resources that he said will strengthen Ukraine’s partners and weaken Russia’s economy and “war machine.”

The five points include three secret annexes, one of them related to the deterrence point that has already been presented to U.S., British, German, French and Italian partners, Zelensky said.

If successfully implemented, Zelensky said, this plan could end Russia’s war in Ukraine by late next year. Russian President Vladimir Putin “must see that his geopolitical calculations are doomed,” Zelensky said. “Russians must feel that their czar has lost geopolitically to the world.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the plan. He said Kyiv needs to acknowledge that its policy is futile and “sober up and realize the reasons that led to this conflict.”

Zelensky’s presentation of the plan comes after trips to the United States, where he presented it to President Joe Biden and presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, and to various European capitals, where he briefed other key partners.

He has said for weeks that the success of the plan depends entirely on Ukraine’s partners. Before visiting Washington, he said he planned to pitch it as a chance for Biden to leave office with the legacy of having helped secure a “just peace” for Ukraine.

But little public progress appears to have come out of the visits, with the United States absorbed by the last weeks of presidential campaigns and many in Europe waiting anxiously to see results from the November election.

Ukrainian lawmaker Solomiya Bobrovska, from Holos, a liberal opposition party, said the plan shows “what allies can do to finally say no to Russia and end the war.”

“Unfortunately, I don’t think the U.S. is very receptive of this plan,” she added, pointing to a sense of political paralysis ahead of the presidential election next month. “Biden could make a real historical decision with long-range weapons and the invitation.”

Anna Purtova, a lawmaker from Zelensky’s party, said she feels confident in the plan. “Without delay, without waiting for anything, we must know our security guarantees, and therefore, the invitation of Ukraine to NATO now,” she said.

A senior NATO official said Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov will “shed some more light on the victory plan” at a dinner with NATO defense ministers on Thursday. The plan’s “ingredients” are now clear, including more military aid, lifting restrictions on long-range strikes, help for the economy and energy sector, and the most prominent ask on the list, an invitation for NATO membership, the official said.

Kyiv is hoping for a decision before next summer, but it is unlikely to come with an outgoing U.S. administration, the official said, adding: “I won’t bet a bottle of wine” on a NATO invitation anytime soon. “A lot will depend on what the new American administration thinks about this, but I see that the field is shifting a bit, so there’s more serious talk.”

The official added that NATO membership is the main point of the plan because Zelensky “knows the only way his country in the future will be safe is if he has an Article 5 guarantee, which is also complicated because Putin has started this war to prevent that from happening, so imagine that at the negotiation table.”

Security guarantees enshrined in NATO’s Article 5, the bloc’s mutual defense clause, come only with membership in the alliance, “which we all know will only happen once the conflict is over and whatever line of demarcation we have then is stabilized,” the official said.” It won’t happen before.”

Ellen Francis in Brussels contributed to this report.