CNN: What does Zelensky mean when talking about neutrality?

“We are willing to accept this”, Zelensky said. “This is the most important point. ”

Zelensky and Ukrainian officials have long said they are willing to negotiate Ukraine's neutrality if NATO is unwilling to accept the country as Alliance member.

This, in theory, would meet one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's demands: that Ukraine give up its NATO aspirations.

But it's not as simple as that. Zelensky also made it clear that Ukraine would reject <x0 subentrality” without legally mandatory security guarantees. And with Ukraine under Russia's invasion, the Ukrainian leader has said he is not interested in empty promises.

“I'm interested in making sure it's not just a piece of paper a la Memorandum of Budapest,” he said.

Zelensky referred to a little moment remembered in the post-Cold War history. With the fall of the USSR, Ukraine came into possession of the world's third largest nuclear reserve.

Russia maintained operational control of these weapons, but Ukraine signed an agreement in 1994 to give up nuclear weapons stationed on its territory in exchange for security guarantees, including protection of Ukraine's territorial integrity and political independence. This is something that Russia, a signatory of Budapest's Memorandium, firmly violated with the annexation of the Crimea in 2014 and the invasion of Ukraine in February.

Mykhailo Podoliak, a senior adviser to Zelensky, has said security guarantees should, in essence, include a commitment by guarantors to assist Ukraine in the event of aggression.

And it's important to add that the neutrality of a kind Putin can see pleasant is not something Zelensky can just offer. The mood for NATO membership is sanctioned in the Constitution of Ukraine.

This is where Zelensky gave Russian interviewers a small lesson in Ukraine's democratic processes. Security guarantees, he explained, would have to be followed by a referendum in Ukraine.

Why? Because we have a law on referendums”, Zelensky said. “We're past it. Changes of this or that status... And pre-supposing security guarantees propose constitutional changes. You understand, don't you? Constitutional changes. ”

And that's the difference. Russia has a political system built around a man é Putin, and Zelensky is head of a democratic state. Even if neutrality is on the negotiating table, the Ukrainian people will have to say their word, broadcast CNN.