President Trump’s top envoys launched two days of meetings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders on Sunday as the administration stepped up pressure on Kyiv to put aside its resistance and agree to a peace deal with Russia by year-end.
The talks between Ukraine and its Western partners have become a tug of war, even without Russia at the table. Washington is pushing for quick decisions, while Zelensky and his European backers contend that significant differences remain that must be resolved.
Among those points, Ukraine has balked at Washington’s call to withdraw its forces from a portion of the eastern Donbas region that Kyiv’s forces still hold. European and Ukrainian officials have pushed for clarity on what the U.S. would do if Russia were to break a peace deal and attack Ukraine.
Both issues will be at the heart of the talks in Berlin. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz proposed the meetings during a talk European leaders held with Trump on Wednesday, which both sides described as difficult.
Trump said he was invited to join the Berlin talks but publicly doubted the trip would be worthwhile. On Friday, Trump decided to send his special Russia envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
Witkoff, who has spearheaded talks with Ukraine and Russia on a U.S. peace plan, is expected to meet with the Ukrainians on Sunday before sitting down with European leaders. Over the past few weeks, he has shuttled between meetings with the Kremlin in Moscow and separate discussions with Kyiv in the U.S. or Europe.
Russian officials have said the U.S. peace plan is a good basis for discussion but haven’t said whether they would accept it. Many European officials doubt the Kremlin is looking to wind down the war. They have said that Europe and all North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries face the risk that if Russia prevails in Ukraine, the Kremlin will set its sights on conflict with European neighbors.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, a former Dutch prime minister, said in Berlin on Thursday that “what is happening in Ukraine could happen to allied countries too,” referring to NATO members.
Ukraine on Wednesday sent Washington its response to an earlier U.S. proposal for ending the war, which started almost four years ago with Russia’s invasion. While there is agreement on some points, including a cap of 800,000 troops on Ukraine’s peacetime armed forces, Kyiv has continued to reject the U.S. push for it to surrender territory in the Donetsk province that Ukrainian troops still hold.
The U.S. plan would stipulate that Kyiv agree not to fight to win back swaths of territory it has lost to Russia elsewhere and may entail Washington formally recognizing Moscow’s annexation of parts of Ukraine. It would also further complicate Kyiv’s hopes of eventually joining NATO, while potentially bringing Russia back into the global economy, including through joint U.S.-Russian projects.
Speaking to reporters via WhatsApp on Sunday morning, Zelensky said Kyiv hasn’t received a response yet from Washington on its proposal. He said Ukraine has “done a lot to ensure that all parties can meet together” and lamented that power politics rather than values was driving the peace negotiations.
“Look, today, we are not talking about honesty, but about power,” he said. “Because if we talk about honesty, values and respect for international law, the Russians had to be condemned from the very beginning.”
Zelensky also indicated Sunday that he was open to discussing the future of the heavily fortified part of Donetsk that Ukraine still holds. He said the fairest option would be to start talks with Russia based on the current front line—not a forced withdrawal—and said if Ukrainian troops withdraw from the area, Russia should also agree to pull its troops back.
He said the issue “is very sensitive and very heated.” Under Ukrainian law, he said, the president cannot surrender territory and that it is for the Ukrainian people to ultimately settle the matter, possibly through a referendum.
Multiple senior Trump administration officials assess that Ukraine is losing the war and would lose if the fighting continued, even though Ukrainian soldiers and other European officials believe Ukraine can defend itself for at least another, especially with increased military and financial support from allies.
The Berlin discussions will also continue negotiations on security guarantees for Ukraine. Zelensky and his top team held a videoconference Thursday with Witkoff, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other senior officials and generals to discuss the help that Washington would provide in the event of a future invasion.
Britain, France and other European capitals have drawn up detailed plans of the kinds of help they could provide Ukraine, including a possible reassurance force in the country, and discussed them with U.S. military officials. But Washington has yet to take a political decision on the help it would provide, according to Ukraine and Europe.
Ukraine originally hoped for NATO membership, with its commitment that an attack on one member constitutes an attack on all. Zelensky on Sunday acknowledged that NATO membership appeared blocked and that he was focused on legally-binding security guarantees from the U.S. and Europe that would be similar to those codified in Article 5 of NATO’s founding treaty.
On Friday, a French official reiterated the importance of Washington giving Ukraine clarity on its role in security guarantees before Ukraine commits to ceding territory.