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BERLIN — The U.S. has agreed to provide unspecified security guarantees to Ukraine as part of a peace deal to end Russia’s nearly four-year war, and more talks are likely this weekend, U.S. officials said Monday following the latest discussions with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Berlin.
The officials said talks with President Donald Trump’s envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, led to narrowing differences on security guarantees that Kyiv said must be provided, as well as on Moscow’s demand that Ukraine concede land in the Donbas region in the country’s east.
Trump dialed into a dinner Monday evening with negotiators and European leaders, and more talks are expected this weekend in Miami or elsewhere in the United States, according to the U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly by the White House.
“I think we’re closer now than we have been, ever,” Trump told reporters at an unrelated White House event. He added, “We’re having tremendous support from European leaders. They want to get it ended, also.”
The U.S. officials said the offer of security guarantees won’t be on the table “forever.” They said the Trump administration plans to put forward the agreement on guarantees for Senate approval, although they didn’t specify whether it would be ratified like a treaty, which needs the chamber’s two-thirds approval.
In a statement, European leaders in Berlin said they and the U.S. committed to work together to provide “robust security guarantees,” including a European-led “multinational force Ukraine” supported by the U.S.
They said the force’s work would include “operating inside Ukraine” as well as assisting in rebuilding Ukraine’s forces, securing its skies and supporting safer seas. They said Ukrainian forces should remain at a peacetime level of 800,000.
Witkoff and Kushner were accompanied by U.S. Air Force Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, who heads NATO’s military operations and the U.S. European Command, as talks honed in on the particulars of what the U.S. officials described as an “Article 5-like” security agreement. Article Five in the NATO treaty is the collective defense clause stating that an attack on one member is an attack on all.
The U.S. side presented the Ukrainians a document that spelled out in greater specificity aspects of the proposed U.S. security guarantees — something that Ukrainian officials said was missing from earlier iterations of the U.S. peace proposal, according to U.S. officials.
The U.S. side backs a Russian demand for Kyiv to withdraw from areas of its eastern Donetsk region that Moscow’s forces have failed to seize since 2014, a person familiar with the matter said.
Zelenskyy repeatedly rejected the demand and, together with European allies, is insisting on a ceasefire along the current line of contact, the person said, asking not to be identified discussing sensitive issues. Chancellor Friedrich Merz was set to host about 10 European leaders later Monday together with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
The Ukrainian president signaled Sunday that Kyiv could step back from its long-term goal of joining NATO if it reached a bilateral security agreements with the U.S., European and other states, potentially including Canada and Japan. Speaking at the same conference in Berlin, Merz vowed to stand by Kyiv.
Russia’s war “is and remains a criminal attack on Europe’s order of peace,” the German leader said. “Ukraine’s destiny is the destiny of all of Europe.”
TALKS ‘SUBSTANTIAL’
Questions over Ukraine’s postwar security and the fate of occupied territories have been the main obstacles in talks. Zelenskyy has emphasized that any Western security assurances would need to be legally binding and supported by the U.S. Congress. Meanwhile, Russia has said it will not accept any troops from NATO countries being based on Ukrainian soil.
Zelenskyy on Monday called the talks “substantial” and noted that differences remain on the issue of territory.
Zelenskyy’s top security official, Rustem Umerov, cited “real progress” in the German capital after the Ukrainian leader and his team held a second day of discussions lasting about five hours with U.S. officials.
“Over the past two days, Ukrainian-U.S. negotiations have been constructive and productive, with real progress achieved,” Umerov said in a statement on X. “We hope we will reach an agreement that will bring us closer to peace by the end of the day.”
Umerov lauded Witkoff and Kushner for “working extremely constructively” for peace and said the Ukrainians were “enormously grateful” to Trump.
Zelenskyy has expressed readiness to drop Ukraine’s bid to join NATO if the U.S. and other Western nations give Kyiv security guarantees similar to those offered to NATO members. But Ukraine’s preference remains NATO membership as the best security guarantee to prevent further Russian aggression.
Ukraine has continued to reject the U.S. push for ceding territory to Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin wants Ukraine to withdraw its forces from the part of the Donetsk region still under its control as a key condition for peace.
The U.S. officials on Monday said there is consensus on about 90% of the U.S.-authored peace plan, and that Russia has indicated it is open to Ukraine joining the European Union.
Russia isn’t present at the Berlin talks and Putin has shown no sign of pulling back from his maximalist demands in Ukraine, including on territory.
Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov made clear that Russia is unlikely to accept changes advanced by Europe and Ukraine to the U.S.-led proposals that have been largely favorable to Moscow. Witkoff and Kushner held five hours of talks with Putin in Moscow on the plan on Dec. 2.
“If relevant amendments are made, we will have very strong objections, because we had outlined our position very clearly and the U.S. seemed to have understood it,” Ushakov said in prerecorded remarks to state television broadcast Sunday. “There will be provisions which are completely unacceptable for us, including on territorial issues.”
European Union foreign ministers also plan talks on Ukraine at their meeting in Brussels on Monday. The bloc’s foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas acknowledged to reporters that efforts to reach agreement on a reparations loan to Ukraine backed by frozen Russian state assets are growing increasingly difficult.
Merz put the issue in starker terms, saying it was essential to demonstrate EU unity.
“If we fail to do this, the EU’s ability to act will be severely damaged for years to come,” Merz said.
Asked whether the negotiations could be over by Christmas, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said trying to predict a potential time frame for a peace deal was a “thankless task.”
“I can only speak for the Russian side, for President Putin,” Peskov said. “He is open to peace, to a serious peace and serious decisions. He is absolutely not open to any tricks aimed at stalling for time.”
Putin has denied plans to attack any European allies.
Russia fired 153 drones of various types at Ukraine overnight Sunday into Monday, according to Ukraine’s Air Force, which said 133 drones were neutralized, while 17 more hit their targets.
In Russia, the Defense Ministry on Monday said forces destroyed 130 Ukrainian drones overnight. An additional 16 drones were destroyed between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. local time.
Eighteen drones were shot down over Moscow itself, the defense ministry said. Flights were temporarily halted at the city’s Domodedovo and Zhukovsky airports as part of safety measures, officials said.
Damage details and casualty figures were not immediately available.
Information for this article was contributed by Stefanie Dazio, Aamer Madhani, Seung Min Kim, Darlene Superville, Pietro De Cristofaro, Illia Novikov and Katie Marie Davies of The Associated Press and Daryna Krasnolutska, Kate Sullivan, Christoph Rauwald, Arne Delfs and Iain Marlow of Bloomberg News (TNS).
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrives at the Bellevue Palace for talks with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Berlin, Germany, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, and Steve Witkoff, special envoy of the United States, meet at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, Pool)French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, talian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, front row from left, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, Dick Schoof,Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, back row from left, stand together in the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, Pool)German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier welcomes Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the Bellevue Palace in Berlin, Germany, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Maryam Majd)
