Kiev handed over drafts on security guarantees to some states - Zelensky

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said his country had exchanged draft documents on security guarantees with a number of countries.

"We do need guarantees of security from leading nations," he said in an interview to Fox News, adding that this applies to both NATO members and non-NATO countries. "We want those countries that wanted join this openly in addition to the US, Great Britain, Germany, France, Turkey."

"I only named those countries which have already said that they are prepared to be guarantors, or those who we contacted and already exchanged some early drafts of the documents about them being guarantors," the Ukrainian leader continued.

In his words, among the countries that have offered to guarantee security to Ukraine are Israel and Ireland. "We would like to have China join it," he said.

At the same time, the Ukrainian leader admitted that "Russia needs to find place in that agreement as well, because it will be an agreement between Ukraine and Russia." In his opinion, Russia "needs to be bound" by the treaty, because it is a party to the conflict.

Alexander Chaly, a member of the Kiev delegation, said that Ukraine agreed to adopt a neutral and non-nuclear status if it were given security guarantees, which "in content and form should be similar to Article 5" of the North Atlantic Treaty. According to him, the guarantees should envisage military assistance and the establishment of a no-fly area after three days of consultations in order to pursue a diplomatic solution.

The guarantors, according to Kiev, could include permanent members of the UN Security Council (including Russia), as well as Germany, Israel, Italy, Canada, Poland and Turkey. Their guarantees wouldn't cover Crimea and Donbass, according to the head of the parliamentary faction of Ukraine's ruling Servant of the People party, David Arakhamiya, who is taking part in the talks.

Moscow calls for providing security guarantees to Russia, Ukraine and all European countries, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday.

Situation around Ukraine

On Tuesday, the Russian and Ukrainian delegations held in-person talks in Turkey's Istanbul. After the meeting, Vladimir Medinsky, head of the Russian delegation at the talks, said that Moscow had received from Kiev its written proposals for a future bilateral agreement. He added that after studying the initiatives, Russia would put forward its own proposals. In addition, in his words, Moscow is taking "two steps towards" Kiev and suggests that a meeting between the Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Vladimir Zelensky be held earlier than planned, or simultaneously with the initialing of the peace treaty by the two foreign ministers. At the same time, the Russian military will scale down its activities outside Kiev and Chernigov.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on February 24 launched a special military operation in Ukraine following a request for help from the leaders of two Donbass republics. He stressed that Moscow had no plans for an occupation of Ukrainian territories, its sole aim being the country's demilitarization and denazification.