Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy completed more than five hours of negotiations with US envoys in Berlin on December 14 with no indication of potential results revealed, only that talks would continue the following day.
Zelenskyy was already scheduled to meet with key European backers -- the leaders of Germany, Britain, in France -- on December 15. It was not immediately clear if those discussions would take place on time, be delayed, or be combined with the holdover US-Ukraine negotiations.
Dmytro Lytvyn, a spokesman for the Ukrainian presidential office, late on December 14 said the US-Ukraine talks wrapped after more than five hours and that "they have arranged to continue tomorrow morning."
Zelenskyy's December 14-15 negotiations with US envoys and European leaders are aimed at ending Russia's nearly four-year war on Ukraine, which has become the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War II.
Just ahead of the talks, Zelenskyy suggested possibility that Ukraine could relinquish long-standing aspirations of joining NATO in exchange for alternate Western security guarantees.
However, ruling out NATO entry would not be a simple decision for Zelenskyy, as alliance membership is a policy goal written into Ukraine's constitution.
"From the very beginning, Ukraine's desire was to join NATO -- these are real security guarantees," Zelenskyy said on December 14 in response to a reporter's question in a WhatsApp chat.
"Some partners from the US and Europe did not support this direction."
"Thus, today, bilateral security guarantees between Ukraine and the US, Article 5-like guarantees for us from the US, and security guarantees from European colleagues, as well as other countries -- Canada, Japan -- are an opportunity to prevent another Russian invasion."
"And it is already a compromise from our part," he said, adding that any such guarantees should be legally binding.
Among Moscow's other hard-line demands, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Kyiv must be barred from any move to join the Western military alliance. Many NATO members, including the United States, have ruled out NATO entry for Ukraine, at least under current conditions.
Moscow Plays Down Value Of Berlin Talks
Moscow has downplayed the significance of the Berlin talks, as disagreements over territorial control and security guarantees persist in the bid by US President Donald Trump to strike a peace deal.
US special envoy Steve Witkoff is in Berlin for the talks, along with Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner.
The presence of Witkoff -- who has led negotiations with Kyiv and Moscow on a US peace proposal -- at the talks is a signal that Washington expects some chance of progress toward ending the full-scale invasion launched by Russia in 2022.
In November, the United States delivered up a 28-point peace plan that critics say heavily favored Russia. Kyiv and its European allies have attempted to formulate amendments and changes to the proposal to take in more of Ukraine's needs.
"The plan is not going to be something everyone likes," Zelenskyy told journalists ahead of the talks. "There are, of course, many compromises in one form of the plan or another."
Yet there is little indication that Russia will reciprocate Ukraine's flexibility. Speaking to Russian state TV on December 14, Yuri Ushakov, Putin's foreign policy aide, said the proposed changes to the US peace plan "will hardly be constructive."
Russia, Ukraine Continue Strikes
As the diplomacy to end the war hastened, attacks continued in Ukraine and Russia.
A Russian drone attack on a shopping center in Zaporizhzhya wounded six people, including a child and a rescuer.
The Ukrainian General Staff said its drone attacks hit a Russian oil depot in Uriupinsk, Volgograd region, and an oil refinery in Afipsky, Krasnodar region.
Zelenskyy said the Russians launched more than 1,500 attack drones, nearly 900 guided aerial bombs, and 46 missiles of various types against Ukraine this week.
"Russia is dragging out the war and seeks to inflict as much harm as possible on our people," he said.
