«Ukrainian interests are also European interests,» indicated German Chancellor on social network X, who has invited for Monday in Berlin «numerous» European leaders, from the European Union (EU) and NATO, to negotiate the peace plan with Zelenskiy, eventually, with Trump's envoys.
Currently, at least three documents are being negotiated: the 20-point peace plan; security guarantees for Ukraine; and economic issues, reconstruction and investments, according to Kyiv.
The Kremlin already rejects modifications in advance
According to Zelenskiy, Trump wants to reach a «complete understanding» on the peace plan before Christmas, but the Kremlin has already said it does not accept the modifications introduced by Europe and Kyiv in Trump's initial draft of 28 points.
«If the corresponding modifications are made, we will have very strong objections,» said Kremlin's international policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, to Russian state television on Sunday.
One of Kyiv's modifications sets the limit for the number of soldiers in the Ukrainian Army at 800,000 instead of the 600,000 in the first US draft.
Zelenskiy wants to give priority in his meeting with the US envoys to security guarantees, which he wants to be binding to prevent Russia from being able to invade the country a third time without consequences, as it did in 2014 and again four years ago.
The Ukrainian president considers that a «real» guarantee to prevent another Russian invasion would be Ukraine's accession to NATO, and he would at least like to leave the door open to this possibility.
But in the meantime, he has accepted that this will not happen, so he would accept «Article 5-type» mutual defense guarantees from the US, European partners, and other G7 countries, he said on Sunday.
Binding guarantees and commitments
After Trump stated that the Ukrainian leader «is the only one who doesn't like the US peace plan,» Zelenskiy emphasized that the final version will not please everyone and will require compromises from all parties, and his is to renounce NATO.
According to a senior official cited by the US media ‘Axios’, the Trump Administration would be willing to give Ukraine a guarantee based on Article 5, which would be approved by Congress and be legally binding in exchange for Zelenskiy ceding territories to Russia.
Zelenskiy, however, considers the latest proposal for him to withdraw his troops from Donbas — made up of the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk — to be unfair, and instead advocates — like the Europeans — for freezing the front with a ceasefire to later negotiate the territorial issue.
Ushakov has already said that «there will only be a ceasefire after the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops».
Ukraine has lost almost all of Luhansk on the battlefield and controls less than 25% of Donetsk's territory.
Zelenskiy does not like the compromise proposed by the US
The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, met on Sunday in Berlin with the envoys of the US president, Donald Trump; his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his special representative for peace missions, Steve Witkoff, with whom he is negotiating the 20-point plan for a ceasefire and the security guarantees he demands from the US.
The Ukrainian leader arrived at Berlin airport at around 12:00 GMT, after which he first met with his team, headed by the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, Rustem Umerov, and the Chief of the General Staff, Andriy Hnatov, and spoke on the phone with the French president, Emmanuel Macron.
Three hours later, he arrived at the Chancellery, where he was received by the head of the German government, Friedrich Merz, who, as he did earlier with Kushner and Witkoff, led him to the large meeting room, where Zelenskiy hugged Trump's special representative and shook hands with his son-in-law.
Although Merz was sitting at the table, government sources indicated that he had addressed the negotiators and was then going to leave.
«We want a lasting peace in Ukraine,» Zelenskiy said.
«We want a peace that would establish that the Russian army would not enter the part of eastern Ukraine controlled by Kyiv, from where Ukrainian troops should withdraw».
Because, as he indicated on Sunday, it does not oblige Russia to withdraw to the same extent and it is also unclear who would administer that «free economic zone» that Washington speaks of or «demilitarized zone» for Moscow, which says it could accept that the Russian Guard, dependent on the Kremlin, would monitor it.
Zelenskiy does not like the US-proposed compromise under which he should withdraw troops from Donbas and agree to create a «free economic zone» there, which would be controlled by Russia.
«We want a peace that would establish that the Russian army would not enter the part of eastern Ukraine controlled by Kyiv, from where Ukrainian troops should withdraw,» he stressed.
