Unlock the free White House Watch newsletter
Your guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the world
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he is ready to drop demands for NATO membership in exchange for security guarantees from the United States and Europe in a bid to advance peace talks in Berlin on Sunday.
US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner have pushed Ukraine to accept painful concessions, including ceding border areas to Russia, ahead of talks with Zelensky and Ukraine’s European allies over a White House plan to end Russia’s aggression.
Ukraine has acknowledged that it is unlikely to join NATO in the near future due to strong opposition from Russia, which has long demanded that the transatlantic alliance pledge to halt its eastward expansion as a condition for ending the war.
But Zelensky told reporters on Sunday that Ukraine still needed security guarantees from the US and Europe, similar to NATO’s Article 5 clause of mutual protection for any member under attack.
“We are talking about bilateral security guarantees between Ukraine and the United States – that is, guarantees like Article 5… as well as security guarantees for us from our European partners and from Canada, Japan and other countries,” Zelensky told journalists in a WhatsApp chat. “And that’s already an agreement from our side.”
Zelensky said Ukraine had not yet received a response from Washington on revised proposals sent to Kiev earlier this week following consultations with European leaders.
“The plan will certainly not be one that appeals to everyone. There are many compromises in one version or another of the plan,” he said.
Russia has said it would likely reject all proposals from Ukraine and Europe, raising doubts over whether Trump’s efforts to end the nearly four-year war will succeed.
Putin’s foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov said that any Ukrainian and European suggestions for the plan were “unlikely to be constructive” and that Russia would have “strong objections” if the US adopted them. “It’s not like anything good is going to happen there,” Ushakov said in comments broadcast on state television on Sunday.
Both sides appeared to reject Trump’s proposal to withdraw all troops from the Donbass region to create a “free economic zone” in parts of eastern Ukraine now held by Kiev. The proposal would require Ukraine to withdraw from “fortress zones” of cities that Moscow’s forces have failed to capture in more than 11 years of war.
Zelensky said on Sunday that he “does not consider it appropriate”.
For example, if Ukrainian troops retreated five to 10 kilometers, why shouldn’t Russian troops also retreat into the occupied territories by the same distance? he asked. “It’s a question that still doesn’t have an answer, but it’s extremely sensitive and very hot.”
Zelensky said that “the only reasonable and possible option” for true peace is for “the parties to stop where they are and then try to resolve all broader issues through diplomacy”.
“We stand where we stand,” he said. “This is an absolute ceasefire.”
Ushakov also appeared to oppose the demilitarized zone plan, saying this week that Russia would only accept full control over Donbass. He said Russia had not discussed a “Korean scenario”, which could include stabilizing the existing border line with the US.
Ushakov also rejected Zelensky’s earlier suggestions that Ukraine could regain control of Crimea, which Putin annexed in 2014, or join NATO. Both proposals “will not be a million percent,” Ushakov said.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz hosted talks with Zelensky, Witkoff and Kushner at the Federal Chancellery on Sunday. Europe is pushing to regain influence over the talks, which have largely sidelined the bloc despite far-reaching consequences for the continent.
When the talks ended after five hours, Witkoff wrote on X that the delegations “had in-depth discussions regarding a 20-point plan for peace, the economic agenda and much more.”
“A lot of progress has been made,” he said, adding that delegations would meet again on Monday morning.
In a speech in Bavaria on Saturday, Merz compared Putin’s war in Ukraine to Adolf Hitler’s occupation of the German-speaking border areas of Czechoslovakia in 1938, to which the Western allies failed to respond.
Merz said, “This war of aggression by Russia against Ukraine is a war against Europe. And if Ukraine falls, it will not stop, just as the Sudetenland in 1938 was not enough. Putin will not stop.”
Additional reporting by Anne-Sylvain Chassany in Berlin
