US negotiators have floated the idea of Ukraine’s ​potential withdrawal from its eastern region of Donbas in exchange for joining NATO, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, following the latest round of peace talks with ‌Russia in Abu Dhabi.

This is the first time the question of linking NATO membership to territorial concessions has been raised during the talks, Zelenskiy said in remarks to reporters released by his office on Saturday, Reuters reported.

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

“That is why I believe NATO is back on the agenda. But you have also heard (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s ​signals, and this is an extremely difficult conversation.”

Putin has long said Ukrainian membership of NATO is a red line for Moscow, citing the issue as one ​reason for launching Russia’s full-blown invasion in 2022.

Zelenskiy reiterated his position that Kyiv was not ready to concede territory but said that ⁠if it received a comprehensive package including security guarantees, the right to a strong and well-funded Ukrainian army and funds to rebuild, he would put the question to a ​national referendum.

‘THIS WAR MUST BE ENDED FIRST’

Echoing comments made by European leaders at a summit in Dublin on Friday, Zelenskiy dismissed Russia’s call for a broad agreement on European security ​architecture to be reached before the specifics are agreed on how to end the war in Ukraine.

“We cannot turn everything upside down and start by talking about changing the security framework in the world or across the continent overall, and only then talk about ending this war. This war must be ended first,” he said.

US President Donald Trump’s envoy and son-in-law Jared Kushner said on Saturday that the two ​sides had set out “maximalist positions” in the talks this week, but in private discussions both “understand that practical compromises will be necessary to end this war.”

“Serious and constructive work continues ​among those of us committed to finding solutions,” Kushner said in a social media post.

Zelenskiy also dismissed Putin’s suggestion for a local humanitarian ceasefire in Kostiantynivka, a hotly contested city in Ukraine’s ‌eastern Donetsk ⁠region, saying it reflected Moscow’s inability to take the city by force. Civilians there have already had the opportunity to evacuate, he added.

“Putin simply wants us to leave Kostiantynivka so that they can move in and occupy the entire city that way,” he said.

Ukraine has given a list of seven or eight other frontline settlements where civilians, including children, are trapped for a potential humanitarian truce but Russia prefers to use them as military targets, Zelenskiy said.

Moscow denies deliberately targeting civilians in the war.

LARGE PRISONER EXCHANGE AGREED

The two days of ​US-brokered talks between Ukraine and Russia concluded ​on Wednesday in the Emirati capital without ⁠a major breakthrough, though the sides agreed to a prisoner exchange that will involve more than 1,000 people, Zelenskiy said.

The final numbers for the prisoner swap were still under discussion, he added.

Kushner and fellow US envoy Steve Witkoff had pledged to raise an energy ​ceasefire with Putin at a meeting in Moscow on Thursday, Zelenskiy said, but there was no news of any progress after ​their talks.

“Putin personally does ⁠not support a ceasefire,” he said.

Zelenskiy met Witkoff and Kushner on Thursday in Ireland after their talks in Moscow. He said the US negotiators had told him that all sides had agreed for Europe to have a seat at the negotiating table in forthcoming peace talks.

In Abu Dhabi, delegates from Europe — which is now Ukraine’s largest financial and military backer — had talks ⁠with US ​and Ukrainian officials but did not sit at the table with Russia.

At the summit in Ireland, EU leaders ​agreed that Europe’s team for any Ukraine peace talks would comprise five major military powers — non-EU member Britain plus France, Germany, Italy and Poland — as well as EU officials.

Kushner said the US focus was now on “facilitating ​direct engagement between Moscow and European partners and preparing the agenda for the next round of trilateral talks.”

The FAA lifted a nationwide ground stop on Friday after a communications failure at air traffic control centers caused chaos at ​US airports and triggered the longest shutdown since the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said US airspace reopened at 8:15 p.m. Eastern Time (0115 GMT), ‌but warned that departures would resume gradually and it would take time for airlines to restore normal operations, Reuters reported.

“It’s going to be slow,” Duffy told reporters at the White House.

More than 6,600 flights were canceled and 8,600 delayed, with another 1,500 already canceled for Sunday, according to FlightRadar24. Aviation analysts said the four-hour nationwide grounding could disrupt airline schedules for days.

Duffy said tens of thousands of passengers were stranded at airports around the country. Duffy said he ​and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin had met with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office to discuss the outage.

The failure is the latest and most dramatic sign of ​strain on a US air traffic control system beset by aging technology, equipment and communications problems and a shortage of several thousand controllers.

Duffy said the ⁠trouble began at 3:36 p.m., when air traffic control centers experienced instability in radar and communications systems.

“Our switches, our routers actually got overloaded with data and they started to give us inconsistencies ​in the data from those routers and because of that we shut the system down,” Duffy said, adding that at no stage did they completely lose radar or communications and they were able to safely land thousands ​of planes.

Duffy said the immediate problem had been fixed and that flying was safe, but warned that a broader overhaul of the aging air traffic control system was needed to prevent similar failures.

$50 BILLION AVIATION OVERHAUL

Duffy blamed Congress for failing to fund a new system that he said could prevent such outages, and called for $50 billion to modernize it.

Earlier on Friday, before the outage, the White House and Department of Transportation had urged Congress ​to approve $30.1 billion to upgrade the nation’s aging airports and air traffic control infrastructure.

“What we have is an incredibly old air traffic control system,” Duffy said.

“Give us the money to fix it.”

Homeland ​Security Secretary Mullin said there was “zero evidence” so far that the outage resulted from a cyberattack or a rogue AI system, though investigators had not ruled out either possibility.

“It appears this was mechanically driven, however, we’re still ‌looking,” Mullin said.

The ⁠National Security Agency was working with the Department of Homeland Security on the investigation, he added.

The outage appeared to be affecting a telecommunications network overseen by L3Harris Technologies, according to two airline officials. The network handles critical radio frequencies used by air traffic controllers to communicate with pilots. L3Harris did not respond to a request for comment.

PAIN NOT OVER FOR PASSENGERS

Though the ground stop was lifted, the disruption for passengers was far from over. From Boston to Seattle and New York to Los Angeles, passengers crowded departure halls and airline desks as delays and cancellations mounted and aircraft ​remained parked at gates.

Thousands of passengers faced being ​stranded overnight. Edward Kargbo, 50, from West Chester, ⁠Pennsylvania, had been scheduled to take a 9 p.m. Ethiopian Airlines flight to Lomé, Togo. Instead, he planned to spend the night at the airport before a rescheduled flight at 6 a.m. on Saturday.

“I have to squat the night here,” he said. “I’m stranded.”

Louise Maher, 47, was also caught up ​in the disruption at Newark after her British Airways flight to London was caught up in the aviation meltdown.

“I might cry at some ​point but not yet,” she ⁠said.

US airlines will not be required to provide compensation to stranded passengers because the carriers were not responsible for the FAA system failures.

The only other nationwide ground stop since the September 11 attacks came in January 2023, when the FAA halted domestic departures for about 90 minutes.

Investors were already pricing in a financial hit to airlines. Shares of American Airlines (AAL.O), opens new tab, United Airlines (UAL.O), opens new tab and Delta Air Lines fell between 1% and ⁠2% in after-hours ​trading, while JetBlue Airways dropped about 3%.

American Airlines said it was prioritizing flights to smaller cities outside its major ​hubs and international destinations to position aircraft and crews for a faster recovery.

Secretary ​of State Marco Rubio attacked the International Criminal Court in a speech to a conservative legal group on ‌Friday, arguing for a muscular foreign policy and against international law restraining US actions.

Rubio’s speech to the Federalist Society in Washington, his first prepared remarks since Republicans were routed in the midterm elections on November 3, heightens speculation over whether he will leave his roles as national security adviser ​and top US diplomat to run for president in 2028, Reuters reported.

Rubio, who has at times sought to provide an intellectual justification ​for President Donald Trump’s “America First” foreign policy, has firmly denied reports he will soon embark on a ⁠presidential campaign, but the Federalist Society is an occasional stop for Republican hopefuls.

He has dismissed criticisms that the Trump administration has ​broken international law by such actions as seizing Venezuelan then-President Nicolas Maduro and striking boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific that ​it says were carrying drugs.

In his speech, Rubio said the goal of the US-Israeli war against Iran was to prevent Tehran from ever developing a nuclear weapon, which he said was particularly urgent because the Islamic Republic’s “radical Shia clerics” had an “expansionist mentality.”

He contrasted this with the government of North Korea’s ​Kim Jong Un, whom Trump has met three times. “I’m not excusing the terrible things that have happened there,” Rubio said of ​North Korea. “I’m just saying he (Kim) is not expansionist. He’s not trying to invade Japan or, you know, China or whatever.”

The US, Rubio said, would ‌not “submit to ⁠the sterile vision of radical judges or soulless global bureaucrats,” repeating his assertion that the court would try to prosecute US officials or service members that he used to justify sanctions against the ICC announced last month.

“Americans have never agreed to submit to the ICC’s authority, but that court and its allies in the global bureaucracy have appointed themselves judge and jury and executioner of the ​international order,” Rubio said.

The Trump ​administration has long been hostile ⁠to the Netherlands-based court, founded in 2002 to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, and has previously imposed sanctions on its prosecutors and judges. The ICC has received strong backing ​from most member states, which include all EU countries and all members of the NATO alliance ​apart from the ⁠United States and Turkey.

Washington has denounced the court over arrest warrants issued for Israeli officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and an investigation into actions of US soldiers in Afghanistan, which the ICC says is “deprioritized.”

The US sanctions, designed to stifle the ICC’s ability to operate, ⁠will take ​effect in April unless supporters of the Netherlands-based court can reach an ​agreement with the US to avert them.

Rubio suggested that if the court tried to enforce its rulings against Americans, Washington would respond with force. Quoting the Roman ​general Pompey, Rubio said the US response would be: “Stop quoting laws to men with swords.”