Talks in Berlin: Will Zelenskyy renounce Ukraine's NATO membership?

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and US envoys arrived in Berlin on Sunday for another round of talks aimed at negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine.

US President Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner were seen entering a hotel in central Berlin on Sunday afternoon.

In the run-up to new talks on the US peace plan, President Zelenskyy refrained from insisting on Ukraine joining NATO. When asked by journalists, he explained that this wish was not supported by all allied states. As a compromise, he would consider comparable security guarantees from the EU and the US.

He told reporters on Sunday that any plan would include concessions, but Ukraine needed security guarantees from the US and Europe, similar to Article 5 of NATO on mutual assistance, "We are talking about bilateral security guarantees between Ukraine and the US - namely Article 5-like guarantees - as well as security guarantees from our European partners and other countries like Canada, Japan and others," Zelenskyy said.

Meeting with NATO leaders and EU officials

On Monday, Zelenskyy will be received by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and numerous European heads of state and government, as well as EU and NATO leaders who are due to join the talks in the evening.

In audio messages in response to questions from journalists in a WhatsApp group chat on Sunday, Zelensky confirmed that he would meet separately with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and possibly also with other European heads of state and government later that evening. He also stated that he had not yet received a response from the US to the latest Ukrainian proposals on the peace plan.

Washington has spent months trying to mediate between the demands of both sides, while Trump is pushing for a quick end to Russia's war and is increasingly frustrated by the delays. The search for possible compromises has run into significant obstacles, including control over the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk, which is largely occupied by Russian forces, as well as security guarantees for Ukraine.

US President Trump recently increased the pressure on Zelenskyy. He said that he must "finally move forward and make concessions when you are losing - because Ukraine is losing".

Russia remains firm in its demands

Meanwhile, russian President Vladimir Putin is demanding that Ukraine withdraw its troops from the part of the Donetsk region that is still under its control and give up its endeavours to join NATO - this is one of Russia's key conditions for peace.

Putin's foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov, told the business daily Kommersant that Russian police and national guard units would remain in parts of the eastern Ukrainian Donbas region even if they were declared a demilitarised zone as part of a possible peace plan. This demand is likely to be rejected by Ukraine as the US-led negotiations drag on.

Ushakov warned that the search for a compromise could take a long time, noting that the US proposals, which had taken Russian demands into account, had been "worsened" by changes proposed by Ukraine and its European allies.

In remarks broadcast on Russian state television on Sunday, Ushakov said the "contribution of the Ukrainians and the Europeans to these documents is unlikely to be constructive" and warned that Moscow would raise "very strong objections".

Ushakov added that the territorial issue had been actively discussed in Moscow when Witkoff and Kushner met Putin earlier this month. "The Americans know and understand our position," he said.

Merz, who along with French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, is leading European efforts to support Ukraine, said on Saturday that "the decades of 'Pax Americana' (translated: American peace) are largely over for us in Europe and for us in Germany."

Merz warned that Putin's goal is "a fundamental change of borders in Europe, the restoration of the old Soviet Union within its borders." "If Ukraine falls, he will not stop," Merz said on Saturday during a party conference in Munich.

Putin has repeatedly denied having plans to restore the Soviet Union or to attack European allies.