As fresh negotiations over ending the war in Ukraine ramp up, Volodymyr Zelenskyy revealed US envoys had suggested the nation may be granted NATO membership if it agreed to cede land to Russian invaders.

Ukraine has long sought to join NATO, viewing its Article 5 mutual defence provision as a strong safeguard against Russian aggression, but it is constitutionally prevented from giving up territory and Zelenskyy has repeatedly ruled out such a move.

At least, until Saturday when he said if Ukraine’s allies agreed it was the best course of action he would “ask our Ukrainian society what it thinks”.

It marked a remarkable change of tac from the Ukrainian President, who had consistently argued giving up the Donbas region, of which Ukraine still controls a significant portion, would effectively reward Vladimir Putin for launching the invasion.

Annexing the Donbas has been a Kremlin goal for over a decade and while securing the region in any deal to end the conflict would largely be viewed as a strategic victory for Russia, it is unlikely the US offer will please Putin.

In a 2021 essay which laid out his justification for the war, the Russian President was clear: Stopping NATO and re-writing continental security was every bit as important as seizing Ukraine.

What is Putin’s position on NATO and Ukraine?

Much of Putin’s nearly 5,000 word essay, titled: On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians, focuses on a contested and revisionist history of eastern Europe and Russia.

In it, he asserts Russians and Ukrainians are “one people” and blames Ukraine’s desire for sovereignty on anti-Russian conspiracies fostered by Western powers.

On the one hand he claims Russia was “robbed” of land following the collapse of the Soviet Union and establishment of the Ukrainian state, while on the other he argues: “I am confident that true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia”.

Putin also makes numerous references to what he characterises as Western efforts to drive a wedge between Russia and Ukraine, so as to effectively drag the latter into “a dangerous geopolitical game aimed at turning Ukraine into a barrier between Europe and Russia”.

NATO, he claims, played a key role, arguing the military alliance exerted “direct external control” over Ukraine’s security services and armed forces.

Expansion of NATO and Western ideology is seen by Putin as a threat, ostensibly to Ukraine’s sovereignty, but also transparently as something which could undermine Russia’s influence on the region.

“We will never allow our historical territories and people close to us living there to be used against Russia,” Putin wrote.

Have Russia’s demands shifted over the course of the conflict?

In addition to his essay, Putin also delivered an ultimatum to NATO in December of 2021.

Within it, Russia’s President outlined sweeping changes to Europe’s security framework which were largely viewed as an effort to re-establish a Soviet-era sphere of influence and control over surrounding nations.

Among the conditions Putin put forward were an end to NATO “expansion” and the withdrawal of thousands of troops and equipment from member states in eastern Europe.

He also called for a ban on NATO membership for Ukraine and other ex-Soviet states, as well as limits on the size of the Ukrainian armed forces.

Putin cited his own essay as justification for the measures.

Russia’s invasion, several months later, came after NATO and the US rejected the ultimatum, but Putin is yet to abandon many of its key points.

Despite failing to secure control of Ukraine’s Donbas region in over four years of conflict, Kremlin officials have continued to echo Putin’s 2021 claim Kyiv “simply does not need” the region.

Russia orchestrated sham referendums in parts of the Donbas it occupies in 2023, with negotiators repeatedly insisting any peace agreement include “international recognition” of the results – an improbably high endorsement of formally joining the Russian state.

Saturday’s revelation US mediators had put forward ceding control of the region, which Ukraine’s President did not dismiss out of hand, suggests the Kremlin’s persistence may be slowly turning the tide in Putin’s favour.

Zelenskyy’s newfound willingness to discuss, albeit warily, security guarantees for Russia as part of negotiations to end the war also demonstrates a shift in the Kremlin’s favour.

The Ukrainian leader has become more non-committal on the prospect of hosting peacekeeping forces from allied nations as a means of upholding any ceasefire, a measure Putin has claimed would “immediately” re-start hostilities.

He has, though, warned some of the Kremlin’s demands could be “dangerous” for Europe.

Those include many which underpin a new security framework first teased by US envoy Jared Kushner and later detailed by Yuri Ushakov, one of Putin’s key foreign policy advisers.

Among the details: a ban on both NATO expansion and the deployment of “weapons systems at the Russian border that threaten us”.

It would also see a return to “the configuration of alliance forces at the moment the Nato-Russia founding act was signed” in the 1990s, a move which would require the military alliance to withdraw hundreds of troops from several countries.

In this respect, the framework is hardly new at all. Putin made the same demands in 2021.