‘Will have to create NATO within Ukraine’: Volodymyr Zelenskyy continues to bid for Kyiv's seat

Volodymyr Zelenskyy's remarks come just a day after he offered to resign as the Ukrainian president in exchange for Kyiv's NATO membership.

Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy continued to bid for Kyiv's seat in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), saying that if his country does not join the group then it will have to "create a NATO within" itself.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that a NATO membership is the 'simplest and most logical solution' to end the war. (AP)

Zelenskyy described NATO as the "most cost-effective option for preventing another war", with his post being made on the third-year anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

His remarks come just a day after the president admitted his willingness to resign from his post if it meant that Ukraine would be admitted to the NATO military alliance. "If there is peace for Ukraine, if you really need me to leave my post, I am ready.. I can exchange it for NATO," Zelenskyy said during a press conference, an AFP report said.

Notably, the Ukrainian president has received flak from the new Donald Trump-led US administration. Zelenskyy has also requested to meet Trump before the latter sits down with Russian president Vladimir Putin.

In his post on X, Zelenskyy said that NATO is the simplest and most logical solution. "If Ukraine does not join NATO, we will have to create NATO within Ukraine, which means maintaining an army strong enough to repel aggression, financing it, producing and storing enough of our own weapons, and negotiating with our partners about their participation to deter Russia from starting another war."

He cited this as the reason behind the need of a comprehensive system with security guarantees, including military, economic and political guarantees. "We need to weigh everything, what is cheaper, what is more realistic, and what can be done faster," Zelenskyy added.

"I am grateful to everyone who supports Ukraine in our work toward real security," he said.

Zelenskyy and Trump have been at loggerheads, engaging each other in a war of words since officials from the US and Russia met last week in Saudi Arabia for their first high-level talks in three years. The move infuriated Ukrainian and European leaders as they were not invited.

Earlier, US President Donald Trump said that Zelenskyy was not "very important" to be present at the negotiation meetings aimed at ending the Russia-Ukraine war.

"He has been there for three years. He makes it very hard to make deals," Trump had told Fox News.

In his series of attacks on Zelenskyy, Trump branded the Ukrainian president as a "dictator", and claimed that Ukraine "started" the war, among other allegations.

However, Zelenskyy said that he was not offended by the US President's remarks, saying that "one would be offended by the word 'dictator', if he was a dictator".

Meanwhile, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Saturday had said that President Trump was confident of striking a peace deal with Russia to end the war in Ukraine, saying that the agreement could be reached as early as this coming week.

"Right now, the president and his team are very much focused on continuing negotiations with both sides of this war to end the conflict. The president is very confident that we can get it done this week," Leavitt had told reporters.

Trump had also recently reiterated his belief that the war in Ukraine, according to him, is "going to end". He said, "It's got to end".