The United States has pitched a new pathway for Ukraine to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), an aspiration that Kyiv has long held as a means to guarantee its defence against Russia, almost five years into their war.

But the administration of President Donald Trump has suggested that Ukraine would need to agree to give up all of the Donbas region in the country’s east, which Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded as one of his conditions for ending the war.

The idea, according to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, was communicated to him by Trump’s negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner at the latest round of US-mediated peace talks between Ukraine and Russia in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, last week.

After the Abu Dhabi round of talks, Kushner and Witkoff met Putin in Moscow on Thursday, then briefed Zelenskyy in Dublin, before a meeting of European leaders in the Irish capital on Friday.

Ukraine applied to become a member of NATO in September 2022, seeking to fortify its borders with Russia.

But the Kremlin has repeatedly said Ukraine becoming a member of NATO would demand “a harsh response” from Russia.

So will Washington’s latest pitch be acceptable to both Ukraine and Russia?

On Saturday, Zelenskyy told reporters that Kushner and Witkoff had suggested that Ukraine could become a NATO member if it ceded control of Donbas in the east.

He said, “The Americans raised a question: ‘What if Ukraine joins NATO? Would Ukraine withdraw from Donbas?'”

“NATO is back on the agenda” since it is part of an “extremely difficult” conversation between Ukraine and Russia which would determine the future of European security, Zelenskyy said.

Putin has been against Ukraine’s NATO membership and has demanded that the alliance pull back its troops from countries bordering Russia.

“This is dangerous because, in my view, it is precisely things like this that lead to wars or escalations,” Zelenskyy said.

“Real security in Europe means the EU [European Union] and NATO. That’s it. There is no other security in Europe.”

Ian Lesser, distinguished fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States told Al Jazeera that the US proposal, if accurate, is significant because it articulates very directly an approach long current in US administration circles that Ukraine should be prepared to make territorial concessions in the service of a settlement.

“The NATO element seems very doubtful. Surely attractive to Ukraine, but [it is] hard to imagine Moscow agreeing to this. And some NATO members will be doubtful too,” he said.

Chris Featherstone, a political scientist from the University of York in the United Kingdom argued that the proposal was a major departure from previously held positions.

“The US has been very cautious about getting further involved in Ukraine, with the Biden administration giving military support, but clearly opposing any ideas of Western involvement on the ground. Trump has seemed to be very sympathetic to the Russian cause, and has had significant blow ups with Zelensky, so this proposal is certainly a surprise,” he noted.

He told Al Jazeera that offering NATO membership in a peace settlement would give significant support to Ukraine should Russia reinitiate the conflict in the future.

“In the light of Trump’s repeated attacks on NATO this could be seen as a recommitment to the alliance. However there would be questions over whether Trump could bring other NATO allies to support the proposal,” he added.

Ukraine applied to become a NATO member in September 2022, just months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country.

Since then, Zelenskyy, his officials and Ukrainians around the world have been lobbying NATO nations to speed up Kyiv’s accession process.

But NATO members remain divided over offering Ukraine alliance membership amid an ongoing war despite a broad consensus to signal strong support for Kyiv.

NATO members bordering Russia, like Lithuania and Poland, have been most enthusiastic about backing Ukraine’s ambitions. Several other nations in the alliance have also been supportive of an expedited process for Kyiv to join, amid concerns about corruption in Ukraine and while seeking an end to the war with Russia as a condition for the country to become a NATO member.

But under President Trump, the US has been far less receptive to Ukraine’s calls for NATO membership. Trump has publicly told Ukraine to give up on hopes of joining the alliance.

Yet, while the new proposal from Witkoff and Kushner revives Ukraine’s hopes of joining NATO, it demands a compromise that no government in Kyiv can easily make.

On Saturday, Zelenskyy told reporters that the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO in exchange for ceding territory had not been raised by members of the alliance before and reiterated that Kyiv would not give up any of its territories.

But he said if Ukraine received a peace deal which included security guarantees, the right to maintain a strong and well-funded Ukrainian army and funds to rebuild the country, then he would hold a national referendum on the question of ceding territory in exchange for NATO membership.

Featherstone noted that Ukraine has been fighting for a long time, and has consistently maintained that it will not relinquish it’s territory in a peace deal.

“The proposal from the Trump administration is clearly an attempt to test this Ukrainian position, in an effort to confront the impasse,” he said.

“NATO…