President Volodymyr Zelenskiy offered to drop Ukraine's aspirations to join the NATO military alliance as he held five hours of talks with U.S. envoys in Berlin on Sunday to end the war with Russia, with negotiations set to continue on Monday,
Reuters reports.
Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff said "a lot of progress was made" as he and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner met Zelenskiy in the latest push to end Europe's bloodiest conflict since World War Two, though full details were not divulged.
Zelenskiy's adviser Dmytro Lytvyn said the president would comment on the talks on Monday once they were completed. Officials, Lytvyn said, were considering the draft documents.
"They went on for more than five hours and ended for today with an agreement to resume tomorrow morning," Lytvyn told reporters in a WhatsApp chat.
Ahead of the talks, Zelenskiy offered to drop Ukraine's goal to join NATO in exchange for Western security guarantees.
The move marks a major shift for Ukraine, which has fought to join NATO as a safeguard against Russian attacks and has such an aspiration included in its constitution. It also meets one of Russia's war aims, although Kyiv has so far held firm against ceding territory to Moscow.
"Representatives held in-depth discussions regarding the 20-point plan for peace, economic agendas, and more. A lot of progress was made, and they will meet again tomorrow morning," Witkoff said in a post on X.
The talks were hosted by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who a source said had made brief remarks before leaving the two sides to negotiate. Other European leaders are also due in Germany for talks on Monday.
"From the very beginning, Ukraine's desire was to join NATO, these are real security guarantees. Some partners from the U.S. and Europe did not support this direction," Zelenskiy said in answer to questions from reporters in a WhatsApp chat.
"Thus, today, bilateral security guarantees between Ukraine and the U.S., Article 5-like guarantees for us from the U.S., and security guarantees from European colleagues, as well as other countries — Canada, Japan — are an opportunity to prevent another Russian invasion," Zelenskiy said.
