European leaders expected to cement support for Ukraine as US pushes for peace

European leaders are expected to cement support for Ukraine on Monday as it faces Washington’s pressure to swiftly accept a US-brokered peace deal.

Peace talks between US envoys and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, as well as Ukrainian and European officials, continued on Monday as part of a series of meetings in an effort to secure the continent’s peace and security in the face of an increasingly assertive Russia.

The second day of talks in Berlin began shortly before noon local time.

Finnish president Alexander Stubb, one of the key European interlocutors between US president Donald Trump and Mr Zelensky, was spotted in the German capital on Monday morning.

Mr Zelensky sat down on Sunday with Mr Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Mr Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in the German federal chancellery in the hopes of bringing the nearly four-year war to a close.

Washington has tried for months to navigate the demands of each side as Mr Trump presses for a swift end to Russia’s war and grows increasingly exasperated by delays.

The search for possible compromises has run into major obstacles, including control of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, which is mostly occupied by Russian forces.

The US government late on Sunday said in a social media post on Mr Witkoff’s account after the five-hour meeting that “a lot of progress was made”.

Earlier in the day, Mr Zelensky voiced readiness to drop his country’s bid to join Nato if the US and other western nations give Kyiv security guarantees similar to those offered to Nato members.

But Ukraine continued to reject the US 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, among the key conditions for peace.

He has also cast Ukraine’s bid to join Nato as a major threat to Moscow’s security and a reason for launching the full-scale invasion in February 2022.

The Kremlin has demanded that Ukraine renounce the bid for alliance membership as part of any prospective peace settlement.

Mr Zelensky emphasised that any western security assurances would need to be legally binding and supported by the US Congress.

The Kremlin said on Monday that it expected to be updated on the Berlin talks by the US side once the talks had finished.

Asked whether the negotiations could be over by Christmas, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov described trying to predict a potential time frame for a peace deal as a “thankless task”.

“I can only speak for the Russian side, for President Putin,” Mr 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.”

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who has spearheaded European efforts to support Ukraine alongside French President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, said on Saturday that “the decades of the ‘Pax Americana’ are largely over for us in Europe and for us in Germany as well”.

“Pax Americana” refers to the US’s postwar dominance as a superpower that has brought relative peace to the globe.

Mr Merz warned that Mr Putin’s aim is “a fundamental change to the borders in Europe, the restoration of the old Soviet Union within its borders”.

“If Ukraine falls, he won’t stop,” Mr Merz said during a party conference in Munich.

Mr Macron said on X that “France is, and will remain, at Ukraine’s side to build a robust and lasting peace – one that can guarantee Ukraine’s security and sovereignty, and that of Europe, over the long term”.

Mr Putin has denied plans to attack any European allies.