Ukraine peace talks see agreements on security guarantees, EU membership

U.S. officials said talks in Berlin led to narrowing differences on security guarantees that Kyiv said must be provided, as well as on Moscow’s demand that Ukraine concede land.

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.