At the Adlon hotel in Berlin, an iconic place of 20th century international diplomacy, Volodymyr Zelensky attempted to bring the United States closer to the Ukrainian positions, to obtain an honorable peace and not a surrender to Moscow. “Freezing the front line” is the first proposal formulated in the meeting with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, with respect to the Russian claim to annex all of Donbass. Kiev then said it was willing to make a compromise on NATO: renouncing full membership in exchange for security guarantees from the Americans. Next to the Ukrainian leader, for an initial greeting, was the host Friedrich Merz, representing a Europe that will put everything into play tomorrow its weight by lining up a group of leaders, including Giorgia Meloni, around a table.
Critical phase of the negotiation
Zelensky flew to Germany aware of the critical phase of the negotiations, with Trump increasingly impatient with the prolongation of the war and willing to comply with most of the Russian requests. For this reason, the Ukrainian president assured that he was “ready for dialogue”, but without wanting to give in across the board. Regarding the issue of territories, Zelensky believes that a fair and realistic ceasefire option could be the principle of “we stay where we are”, i.e. the parties maintain their current positions and all issues will be resolved through diplomatic channels. “If Ukrainian troops retreat 5-10 kilometers, why shouldn’t Russian troops retreat the same distance into the occupied territories?” is the objection posed to the Americans regarding their idea of creating a sort of demilitarized buffer zone.
The guarantees
Freezing the front line would allow Kiev to concentrate on the other central chapter of the negotiations. The goal is to obtain “bilateral security guarantees between Ukraine and the United States, i.e. guarantees on the model of Article 5, as well as security guarantees for us from our European partners and other countries such as Canada, Japan and others,” said Zelensky, who in exchange would renounce membership of the Atlantic Alliance, thus neutralizing the Russian veto. From what has emerged so far in the media, the White House would be willing to endorse the Article 5 option by having it approved by Congress to make it legally binding.
The second meeting
After the face-to-face meeting with the Ukrainians, the Americans were scheduled to have a second meeting with the national security advisors of Germany, France and the United Kingdom. “Americans, Europeans and Ukrainians only ask for peace, while Russia continues its war of aggression”, denounced Emmanuel Macron after a phone call with Zelensky. “Difficult questions await us but we are determined to move forward” because “Ukrainian interests are also European interests”, echoed Merz, who tomorrow will bring together in the presence of a group of European heads of state and government (France, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom, Poland and Finland) and the NATO and EU leaders. According to the programs filtering out from Berlin, the appointment will be for dinner, but it is not clear whether Trump’s envoys will also participate.
Russians “indirectly present”
In the German capital, according to Bild, the Russians are “indirectly present” because Yuri Ushakov is in contact with Witkoff. But Vladimir Putin’s chief negotiator has shown little interest in Ukrainian and European activism towards the Americans: “I think their contribution is unlikely to be constructive”, noted the Kremlin presidential advisor, warning: “If there are relevant amendments” to the first American draft “we will have strong objections, since we have expressed our position very clearly”. Ushakov then dismissed Zelensky’s openness to new elections as a ploy “to obtain a temporary ceasefire for a certain period and resume fighting later.”