BERLIN (AP) — European leaders are expected to back Ukraine on Monday as it faces pressure from Washington to quickly accept a U.S.-Malastria peace deal.
After talks between the US ambassador and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Berlin on Sunday, Ukrainian and European officials are set to continue a series of meetings in an effort to preserve peace and security on the continent in the face of an increasingly aggressive Russia.
Finnish President Alexander Stubb, one of the main European negotiators between US President Donald Trump and Zelensky, met in the city of Berlin on Monday morning.
Zelensky sat down Sunday with Trump’s special envoy, Steve Wittkoff, and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in hopes of ending the nearly four-year-old battle over Germany’s federal chancellor.
Washington has tried for months to navigate each side’s demands as Trump pushes for a quick end to the war with Russia and grows increasingly frustrated by delays. Major obstacles to finding a possible deal remain, including control of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, which is mostly occupied by Russian forces.
The US government said in a social media post on Wittkoff’s account late Sunday that “substantial progress was made” after the five-hour meeting.
Earlier in the day, Zelensky voiced his readiness to abandon his country’s bid to join NATO if Kiev gave security guarantees similar to those offered to NATO members by the US and other Western nations. But Ukraine has resisted US pressure to cede territory to Russia.
Putin wants Ukraine to withdraw its forces from parts of the Donetsk region it still controls as one of its main conditions for peace.
The Russian president has also cited Ukraine’s bid to join NATO as a major threat to Moscow’s security and a reason to launch a full-scale offensive in February 2022. The Kremlin has urged Ukraine to abandon its bid for coalition membership as part of any potential peace deal.
Zelensky stressed that any Western security assurances must be legally binding and supported by the US Congress.
In London, meanwhile, the new head of the MI6 spy agency is set to warn on Monday how Putin’s determination to export chaos around the world is rewriting the rules of conflict and creating new security challenges.
Blaise Metreweli He will use his first public speech as head of the United Kingdom’s foreign intelligence service to stress that Britain is facing increasingly unpredictable and interconnected threats, with an emphasis on an “aggressive, expansionist” Russia.
Drone attacks continue
The Air Force of Ukraine said that Russia shot down 153 drones of various types in Ukraine from Sunday to Monday night. The Air Force said early Monday that 133 drones had been neutralized, while 17 more had hit their targets.
In Russia, the Defense Ministry said on Monday that the military had destroyed 130 Ukrainian drones overnight. Then 16 more drones were destroyed between 7am and 8am local time on Monday.
The Russian Ministry of Defense said that 18 drones were shot down in Moscow.
Flights to the city’s Domodedovo and Zhukovsky airports were temporarily suspended as part of security measures, officials said.
Damage details and casualty figures were not immediately available.
‘Pax Americana’ is over
“The decades of ‘Pax Americana’ are largely over for us in Europe and in Germany as well,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who along with French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starr, led European efforts to support Ukraine, said on Saturday.
“Pax Americana” refers to America’s postwar dominance as a superpower bringing relative peace to the world.
Merz warned that Putin’s aim was “a fundamental change in Europe’s borders, restoring the old Soviet Union within its borders”.
“If Ukraine collapses, he will not stop,” Merz warned at a party conference in Munich.
Meanwhile, Macron promised on Sunday at Social Platform X that “France is, and will remain, on Ukraine’s side to build a strong and lasting peace – which can guarantee Ukraine’s security and sovereignty, and Europe’s in the long term.”
Putin has denied plans to attack any European allies.
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Ciobanu reported from Warsaw, Poland. Pietro De Cristofaro in Berlin, Ilya Novikov in Kiev, Ukraine, and Katie Marie Davies in Manchester, England contributed to this report.
