Wars 2022 02/24 Monitoring Russian and Ukraine War.

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Ukraine peace talks stretch into second day at start of pivotal week for Europe

Ukraine said on Sunday it was willing to drop its ambition to join the NATO alliance in exchange for Western security guarantees. But it was not immediately clear how far talks had progressed on that or other vital issues such as the future of Ukrainian territory, and how much the talks in Berlin c

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Ukraine peace talks stretch into second day at start of pivotal week for Europe

REUTERS
Published :
Dec 15, 2025 19:01
Updated :
Dec 15, 2025 19:01

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy departs the Chancellery following talks with US envoy Steve Witkoff and US President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, hosted by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in Berlin, Germany, December 14, 2025. Photo : REUTERS/Annegret Hilse

Ukraine said on Sunday it was willing to drop its ambition to join the NATO alliance in exchange for Western security guarantees. But it was not immediately clear how far talks had progressed on that or other vital issues such as the future of Ukrainian territory, and how much the talks in Berlin could persuade Russia to agree to a ceasefire.

RUSSIA EXPECTS UPDATE FROM US

Zelenskiy said in a post on X "there is a great deal of work under way on the diplomatic track right now" but did not divulge details.

The Kremlin said Ukraine not joining NATO was a fundamental question in talks on a possible peace settlement.

"Naturally this issue is one of the cornerstones and, of course, it is subject to special discussion," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Peskov said Russia expected an update from the US after the negotiations in Berlin.

EUROPEAN DIPLOMACY FACES CRUCIAL WEEK

The talks come at the start of a pivotal week for Europe, with an EU summit on Thursday set to decide whether it can underwrite a massive loan to Ukraine with frozen Russian central bank assets.

Europe has come under fire from the Trump administration in recent weeks over its policies on migration, security and regulating big tech. The European Union and national governments have struggled to find a unified response to the US criticism.

EU foreign ministers met in Brussels on Monday to agree on new sanctions targeting the Russian shadow fleet of oil tankers, although the possibility of an 11th-hour hitch to agreeing an EU trade deal with Latin America threatens to further undermine their attempts to put on a show of strength.

"The most important thing for us is now to ensure we can finance Ukraine," said Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen in Brussels.

"We must take a decision to ensure that Ukraine is in a position to continue its freedom fight and to show the rest of the world that Europe is a strong player. Otherwise we will give in to the picture painted by the American president, that Europe is weak."

Finnish President Alexander Stubb, who has been closely involved in the Ukraine talks and met Zelenskiy on Monday ahead of the US negotiations, sounded a tentatively hopeful note.

"I think we are at a critical moment in negotiations for peace," he told Dutch TV programme Buitenhof broadcast on Sunday.

"And at the same time, we're probably closer to a peace agreement than we have been at any time during these four years," said Stubb.

SECURITY GUARANTEES AMONG ISSUES IN FOCUS

Stubb said the sides were working on three main documents - the framework of a 20-point peace plan, one relating to security guarantees for Kyiv, and a third on reconstruction of Ukraine.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and the leaders of Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden are among those expected in the German capital on Monday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly demanded that Ukraine officially renounce its NATO ambitions and withdraw troops from the roughly 10 per cent of the eastern Donbas region which Kyiv still controls.

Moscow has also said that Ukraine must be a neutral country and that no NATO troops can be stationed there.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Monday that taking over Ukraine's Donbas region will "not be Putin's endgame".

"We have to understand that if he gets Donbas, then the fortress is down and then they definitely move on to taking the whole of Ukraine," Kallas, a former Estonian prime minister, told reporters.

"If Ukraine goes, then other regions are also in danger."​

 

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Putin says Russia will take more land in Ukraine if Europe sinks peace moves

President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday Russia would take more land in Ukraine by force if Kyiv and European politicians whom he cast as "young pigs" did not engage over US proposals for a peace settlement. The United States has held talks with Russia, and separately with Kyiv and European lead

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Putin says Russia will take more land in Ukraine if Europe sinks peace moves

REUTERS
Published :
Dec 18, 2025 00:15
Updated :
Dec 18, 2025 00:15

Paramedics assist a resident during an evacuation from an apartment building hit by a Russian air strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine December 17, 2025. Photo : REUTERS/Stringer

President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday Russia would take more land in Ukraine by force if Kyiv and European politicians whom he cast as "young pigs" did not engage over US proposals for a peace settlement.

The United States has held talks with Russia, and separately with Kyiv and European leaders, on proposals for ending the war in Ukraine but no deal has been reached. Kyiv and its European allies are concerned by demands for Ukrainian territorial concessions and Ukraine wants stronger security guarantees.

At an annual Defence Ministry meeting, Putin said Russia, which sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in 2022, was advancing on all fronts and would achieve its aims by force or through diplomacy.

"If the opposing side and their foreign patrons refuse to engage in substantive discussions, Russia will achieve the liberation of its historical lands by military means," Putin said.

Russia says it controls about 19 percent of Ukraine, including the Crimea peninsula which it annexed in 2014, as well as most of the eastern Donbas region, much of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, and slivers of four other regions.

Russia says Crimea, Donbas, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia are now parts of Russia. Ukraine says it will never accept that, and almost all countries consider the regions to be part of Ukraine.

Defence Minister Andrei Belousov said a task for 2026 was to increase the pace of Russia's offensive. A slide shown during a speech he delivered said Russia was spending 5.1 percent of gross domestic product on the war in 2025.

PUTIN SAYS EUROPEAN LEADERS WHIP UP HYSTERIA

European leaders say they stand with Kyiv and that Russia should not be rewarded for the war in Ukraine, which followed several years of fighting between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops in the Donbas region.

Putin said former US President Joe Biden's administration had sought to destroy Russia and that European politicians had also been pursuing the same objective, a charge denied by European leaders.

He accused European politicians - whom he described as "shoats, or "young pigs" - of whipping up hysteria about a potential war with Russia by warning that Moscow could one day attack a country in the NATO military alliance.

"I have repeatedly stated: this is a lie, nonsense, pure nonsense about some imaginary Russian threat to European countries. But this is being done quite deliberately," Putin said.

Some European leaders have accused Russia of having no real intention of engaging in peace talks. Directing similar criticism at Europe, Belousov said European powers were trying to scuttle attempts to end the war and talking of a war between Russia and NATO within a few years.

"Such a policy creates real prerequisites for the continuation of military operations next year, 2026," he said.​

 

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Russia will certainly achieve its goals in Ukraine: Putin

Russian president Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday Moscow would ‘certainly’ achieve its goals in the offensive in Ukraine, including seizing the territories it claims are its own, amid a flurry of international diplomacy to end the war...

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Russia will certainly achieve its goals in Ukraine: Putin
Agence France-Presse . Moscow, Russia 18 December, 2025, 00:49

Vladimir Putin. | AFP file photo

Russian president Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday Moscow would ‘certainly’ achieve its goals in the offensive in Ukraine, including seizing the territories it claims are its own, amid a flurry of international diplomacy to end the war.

‘The goals of the special military operation will certainly be achieved,’ Putin told a meeting with defence ministry officials in Moscow, using the Kremlin’s wording for the nearly four-year offensive.

‘We would prefer to do this and eliminate the root causes of the conflict through diplomacy,’ he said, vowing to seize the Ukrainian lands Russia claims to have annexed ‘by military means’ if ‘the opposing country and its foreign patrons refuse to engage in substantive discussions.’

His hawkish comments come as Ukraine on Monday hailed ‘progress’ made on the question of future security guarantees for Kyiv, after two days of talks with US president Donald Trump’s envoys in Berlin.

But according to Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky, differences remain on the question of what territories Ukraine would have to cede to Russia.

Washington’s initial proposal — drafted without input from Ukraine’s European allies — would have seen Kyiv withdraw from its eastern Donetsk region and the United States de facto recognise the Donetsk, Crimea and Lugansk regions as Russian.

The current contents of the revised plan remain unclear.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Kremlin said Russia was waiting for information from the US on the outcome of the talks in Berlin.

‘We expect that, as soon as they are ready, our American counterparts will inform us of the results of their work with the Ukrainians and the Europeans,’ Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

In September 2022, Russia claimed to have officially annexed the Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Lugansk and Kherson regions, even though it did not have full military control over all of them.

Meanwhile, a Russian aerial attack on Wednesday wounded at least 26 people, including in a residential building in the central Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, local authorities announced.

AFP journalists at the scene saw firefighters battling a blaze in a multiple-storey housing bloc, where black smoke was billowing into the sky.

The attack comes as the United States is pushing Ukraine to accept peace terms to halt the fighting that critics have said are favourable to the Kremlin.

‘The Russians launched guided aerial bombs, destroying residential buildings and damaging an infrastructure facility and an educational institution,’ Ivan Fedorov, the head of the Zaporizhzhia military administration announced.

He said 26 people were wounded in total, including at least one child and that medical workers were on the scene.

The industrial city of Zaporizhzhia had a pre-war population of around 7,10,000 people and lies 27 kilometres from the front line. It has been targeted frequently by Russian forces since they invaded in February 2022.

The Kremlin claimed in late 2022 that it had annexed the wider region, along with three other eastern and southern regions of Ukraine.​

 

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Asked about NATO, Zelensky says Ukraine should not change its constitution

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday he saw no need to change Ukraine's constitution, which enshrines its aim to become a NATO member state, days after offering to drop that ambition in exchange for hard security guarantees. A block on Ukraine joining the military alliance has c

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Asked about NATO, Zelensky says Ukraine should not change its constitution

REUTERS
Published :
Dec 18, 2025 23:17
Updated :
Dec 18, 2025 23:17

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky attends a press conference on the day of the European Union leaders' summit in Brussels, Belgium, Dec 18, 2025. Photo : REUTERS/Stephanie Lecocq

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday he saw no need to change Ukraine's constitution, which enshrines its aim to become a NATO member state, days after offering to drop that ambition in exchange for hard security guarantees.

A block on Ukraine joining the military alliance has consistently been a core Russian demand to end its nearly four-year war against its neighbour.

Zelensky said on Sunday that Ukraine could compromise on NATO membership if given bilateral security guarantees with protections similar to NATO's Article 5, which considers an attack on one member as an attack against all.

"To be honest, I don't think we need to change our country's constitution," Zelenskiy said on Thursday when asked about it by a reporter, adding that the Ukrainian people should make decisions about their constitution.

"Certainly not because of calls from the Russian Federation or anyone else," he said.

Zelensky has long said that security guarantees against further Russian incursions, backed by its allies including the United States, were an essential part of any potential peace deal.

However, on Thursday, he said discussions risked moving towards pressuring Ukraine to trade concessions elsewhere in exchange for those guarantees. While he acknowledged there had been no direct suggestions of this during the talks, any such bartering for security guarantees was a non-starter for Kyiv.

"There must be partnership. There can be no question of exchange here," he said.

Kyiv has enshrined a strategic goal of membership of NATO and the European Union in its constitution since 2019. It has, however, acknowledged that it would not currently be welcomed into NATO by all its members.​

 

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Zelensky presses EU to tap Russian assets at crunch summit

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky told EU leaders Thursday they had the ‘moral’ and legal right to use frozen Russian assets to fund Kyiv — as pressure grew on key player Belgium to drop its opposition at a summit showdown.

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Zelensky presses EU to tap Russian assets at crunch summit
Agence France-Presse . Brussels, Belgium 19 December, 2025, 01:54

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. | File photo

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky told EU leaders Thursday they had the ‘moral’ and legal right to use frozen Russian assets to fund Kyiv — as pressure grew on key player Belgium to drop its opposition at a summit showdown.

The 27-nation bloc is scrambling to bolster its ally Ukraine, as US president Donald Trump pushes for a deal with president Vladimir Putin to end the fighting.

Officials have insisted leaders’ talks in Brussels will last as long as it takes to hammer out an agreement, saying both Ukraine’s survival — nearly four years into the war — and Europe’s credibility are at stake.

‘We will not leave the European summit without a solution for the funding of Ukraine,’ European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen said.

The EU’s executive wants to fund a loan to Ukraine by using frozen assets from Russia’s central bank, though it is holding on to a back-up plan for the bloc to raise the money itself.

The EU estimates Ukraine needs an extra 135 billion euros ($159 billion) to stay afloat over the next two years — with the cash crunch set to start in April.

Zelensky said Kyiv needed a decision on its financing by the end of the year and that the move could give it more leverage in talks to end the war.

‘Russian assets must be used to defend against Russian aggression and rebuild what was destroyed by Russian attacks. It’s moral. It’s fair. It’s legal,’ Zelensky said.

German chancellor Friedrich Merz was among those agreeing strongly as he said there was ‘no better option’.

But Belgium’s prime minister Bart De Wever — who held talks with Zelensky on the side-lines — seemed unconvinced so far.

‘I have not seen a text that could persuade me to give Belgium’s agreement,’ he told Belgian lawmakers before the summit kicked off.

The vast bulk of the assets are held by international deposit organisation Euroclear in Belgium, and the government fears it could face crippling financial and legal reprisals from Moscow.

EU officials say they have gone out of their way to allay Belgian worries and that multiple layers of protection — including guarantees from other member states — mean the risks are minimal.

‘At this stage, the guarantees offered by the Commission remain insufficient,’ De Wever said.

In a bid to plug Kyiv’s yawning gap, the Commission has proposed tapping 210 billion euros of frozen assets, initially to provide Kyiv 90 billion euros over two years.

The unprecedented scheme would see the funds loaned to the EU, which would then loan them on to Ukraine.

Kyiv would then only pay back the ‘reparations loan’ once the Kremlin compensates it for the damage.

In theory, other EU countries could override Belgium and ram the initiative through with a weighted majority, but that would be a nuclear option that few see as likely for now.

De Wever insisted that the EU should go for its alternative plan of raising money itself — but diplomats said that option had been shelved as it needed unanimity and Hungary was firmly against.

Bubbling close to the surface of the EU’s discussion are the US efforts to forge a deal to end the war.

Zelensky said Ukrainian and US delegations would hold new talks on Friday and Saturday in the United States.

He said he wanted Washington to give more details on the guarantees it could offer to protect Ukraine from another invasion.

‘What will the United States of America do if Russia comes again with aggression?’ he asked. ‘What will these security guarantees do? How will they work?’​