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Good morning. Welcome to Axios today. It's March 23rd. We've made it to Wednesday. I'm Nyla Williams.

Today, mortgage rates hit a three-year high. Plus the pandemic renaissance for reading. But first

today's one big thing. Zelensky's bargaining position. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky Monday

said he was open to dropping Ukraine's demand for full NATO membership in exchange for an end to

Russia's war. Zelensky's been floating other compromised possibilities this week too, as talks

between negotiators continue to fail. So what is Ukraine's president willing to do or to give up

to bring Vladimir Putin's attacks to an end? Axios world editor Dave Lawler has more on that. Hey,

Dave. Hi, Nyla. Dave, Ukraine's in a difficult position here. First, can you remind us what Putin

is demanding? Sure. So when Vladimir Putin announced that he was going into Ukraine, he said that he

wanted to, quote, demilitarize and de-notsify the country, which was pretty universally taken

as a demand that Ukraine's entire government change. But we're getting to the point now where

that doesn't look as imminent as perhaps he may have thought it was in the scheme of the war.

And the Russian position has changed somewhat, but they continue to demand neutrality for Ukraine

after the war. They continue to demand that Ukraine recognize Crimea, which was annexed by Russia

in 2014 as part of Russia. And they continue to demand that Ukraine recognize these so-called

republics in eastern Ukraine as independent. So those are their three main demands, even if they're

no longer calling for regime change in Kiev. And that neutrality essentially means no NATO membership?

Right. So we didn't actually know exactly what it meant initially. The Kremlin now says that

...