It's news to me, too, but I'm not sure I put a lot of faith in it.
Zelensky claims he gave up on the question "long ago" of whether Ukraine could join NATO, but that's not correct--he was begging NATO to accept his country as a member immediately after Russia invaded.
Nothing happens in a vacuum and experts warned us for decades about the potential of Russian aggression if NATO expanded. Yet, it expanded.
During the negotiations over the dissolution of the former USSR, Secretary of State, James Baker, repeatedly assured Gorbechev NATO would not expand to the east.
"Not once, but three times, Baker tried out the “not one inch eastward” formula with Gorbachev in the February 9, 1990, meeting. He agreed with Gorbachev’s statement in response to the assurances that “NATO expansion is unacceptable.” Baker assured Gorbachev that “neither the President nor I intend to extract any unilateral advantages from the processes that are taking place,” and that the Americans understood that “not only for the Soviet Union but for other European countries as well it is important to have guarantees that if the United States keeps its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction.” (See Document 6)"
NATO Expansion: What Gorbachev Heard | National Security Archive
The
Budapest Memorandum that says NATO will help ensure the sovereignty and security of Ukraine (in return for them giving up nukes), also states we will
not become involved in foreign state governments, although we did that in 2014 when we (along with the EU) funded and helped orchestrate the
ouster of Ukraine's elected president. That was the trigger for Crimea to secede and for Russia to annex that area.
Since then, a large percentage of citizens in the Donbas region, who are heavily pro-Russian,
have wanted to do the same thing, but Ukraine won't allow it--and most of the world does not support it, either.
That's where the current war started--the
Donetsk and Luhansk areas claimed independence early last month. Russia recognized them as independent but Ukraine and the western world did not.
Since 2014 when the whole thing was triggered (see above link), the Ukrainian military has been trying to put down the protests, civil disobedience, secession activities in the Donbas. In doing so-- the
Ukrainian Military has killed an estimated 14,000 citizens in that region.
So yeah, there's been an ongoing problem for 8 years. It didn't happen overnight.
If Zelensky will truly allow the Donbas region to have its independence--AND agree not to pursue a NATO membership--I think the war will end. Those two things will (should) pacify Russia.
Only time will tell. But, I think the western world has done enough damage in that region. I think we need to back off at this point and let them work it out. They are neighbors. They have the most to lose (or gain).
I just hope and pray it's over soon.