Mariupol ultimatum rejected as Kyiv weighed NATO bid for ceasefire
A look back at 21 March 2022, when Ukraine refused to surrender Mariupol while its president signalled flexibility on NATO membership.
What did Ukraine's government say when Russia demanded that it give up control of Mariupol? On 21 March 2022, the answer was no. Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Kyiv had already informed the Russian side that it rejected the ultimatum to surrender the city.
The same day, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he would consider dropping Ukraine's request to join NATO in exchange for a ceasefire. The two positions, refusal on Mariupol and openness on the alliance, marked the range of Kyiv's public stance on 21 March 2022.
Talk of progress in the days before
The statements came after several reports on 20 March 2022 pointing to diplomatic movement. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said Russia and Ukraine were nearing agreement on certain peace issues in an effort to end the war. The Daily Express reported that a BBC correspondent had said Russian President Vladimir Putin had finally agreed to meet Zelenskyy.
Allies and energy
Elsewhere, the diplomatic and economic response to the invasion continued. On 20 March 2022, the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said US President Joe Biden was due to travel to Warsaw on 25 March, after meetings in Brussels with NATO allies and leaders of the G7 and the European Union.
Bulgaria also signalled a shift away from Russian energy on 20 March 2022. Energy Minister Alexander Nikolov said the country would end gas imports from Russia's Gazprom when its 10-year deal expired at the end of 2022, and would seek more gas from Azerbaijan. On 19 March 2022, an anti-NATO protest took place in Bulgaria during a meeting between US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Prime Minister Kiril Petkov, with demonstrators opposing the sale of weapons to Ukraine.
Taken together, the reports from 19 to 21 March 2022 show a government in Kyiv holding firm on a besieged city while publicly testing what it might concede for a ceasefire.
