Germany's conservative opposition leader Friedrich Merz said on Dec. 4 that any speculations about deploying German troops to ensure a ceasefire are irresponsible at this time.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, speaking at the OSCE Ministerial Council meeting in Malta on Dec. 5, strongly opposed any agreements resembling past Yalta or Minsk deals that could legitimize Russian aggression.
"They only want to dictate and speak the language of ultimatums," Andriy Yermak said in an interview for The Telegraph. He emphasized that no leader of the democratic world, including U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, would allow such ultimatums.
Unlike during his first term in the White House, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump appears determined to keep many of his campaign promises. His cabinet nominations — from the Kremlin-friendly Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence to the conspiracy-loving vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., as Secretary of Health and
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told journalists that in order to achieve long term peace in Ukraine, security guarantees such as Ukraine’s NATO membership and deployment of international troops, including German ones, are conceivable.
"We must continue to back Ukraine ... To put Ukraine in the strongest possible position for negotiations so that they can secure a just and lasting peace on their terms that guarantees their security, independence, and right to choose their future."
NATO's two-day ministerial meeting will focus on providing Ukraine with enough military aid to enable it to enter any possible negotiations from a position of strength, Secretary General Mark Rutte said ahead of the meeting in Brussels on Dec. 3.
"The past thousand days have proven conclusively that the war in Ukraine cannot be resolved on the battlefield, and therefore the solution must be sought at the negotiating table," Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said.
"Our army lacks the strength to do that. That is true," President Volodymyr Zelensky told Kyodo News regarding the liberation of territories held by Russia since 2014, including Crimea.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's Nov. 27 decision to choose Keith Kellogg as his special envoy for Ukraine and Russia is not ideal for Kyiv but is an acceptable and reasonable choice for Ukraine, analysts say. Kellogg has co-authored a peace plan that would freeze the front line in Ukraine,
"If we want to stop the hot stage of the war, we should quickly take under NATO umbrella the territory of Ukraine that we have under our control. That's what we need to do first. and then Ukraine can get back the other parts of its territory in a diplomatic way," President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview with Sky News.
Turkey won't support a peace plan that involves freezing the war in Ukraine and Kyiv making territorial concessions to Moscow, Ukrinform reported on Nov. 29, citing Ukrainian lawmaker Ahtem Chiygoz.
"Keith Kellogg is not a new person for Ukraine. The Embassy of Ukraine in the U.S. has maintained close ties with him, in particular within the framework of expert diplomacy in recent years, and has developed and maintained a good dialogue with him during this time," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi said.
According to Ukraine's former diplomacy chief, Ukraine is a "personal obsession for Putin" but also a way to "show to the world how the West is incapable of defending itself or what it stands for."
"We need to restore deterrence, restore peace, and get ahead of this escalation ladder, rather than responding to it," Mike Waltz, Trump's nominee for national security adviser, said on Nov. 24.
"As much as I would like to believe we can negotiate with a tyrant, I suspect we may be deceiving ourselves," Sen. Mike Rounds said. Rounds also said he wished the U.S. had sent more weapons to Kyiv.
Grenell has previously suggested a peace plan in Ukraine involving the creation of "autonomous zones" and has opposed Ukraine's membership in NATO.
"We cannot spend dozens of thousands of our people so that they perish for the sake of Crimea coming back ... We understand that Crimea can be brought back diplomatically," Zelensky told Fox News.
For the first time, five current and former Russian officials outlined to Reuters the Kremlin’s potential terms for a Trump-brokered peace deal.
As attitudes around potential future peace negotiations continue to shift in Ukraine, 52% of Ukrainians now say that they would like to see their country negotiate an end to the war "as soon as possible," according to a survey published by Gallup on Nov. 19.
Polish President Andrzej Duda accused German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Nov. 18 of undermining U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s potential role in Ukraine peace negotiations to rebuild Germany’s ties with Russia.
Polish President Andrzej Duda expressed doubts that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin was agreed with the allies.
"The option of freezing the line of military conflict is unacceptable for the Russian side," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in comments reported by Interfax.
The billionaire reposted a modified excerpt from Zelensky's interview with the Suspilne broadcaster shared on X by the @visegrad24 account, which read: "The U.S. cannot force us to 'sit and listen' at the negotiating table. We are an independent country."
While publicly declaring full support for Ukraine's territorial integrity, the idea of ceding territory is gaining more traction among Western officials, even though the details of such an agreement remain unclear, the Washington Post wrote.
Speaking to a VoA correspondent, the Florida Congressman said that Trump is interested in ending the war instead of continuing it.
"You're going to see a very senior special envoy, someone with a lot of credibility, who will be given a task to find a resolution, to get to a peace settlement," one of the sources said.
Republican Senator Marco Rubio is likely to be the next U.S. secretary of state, according to reports on Nov. 12 that mark the latest insight into how President-elect Donald Trump's White House will approach Russia's war in Ukraine. Trump, leader of the Republican party who was elected president on
After a call with Trump on Nov. 11, Alexander Stubb said his intentions after taking office in January 2025 are clear.
It’s extraordinary how the fortunes of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have changed since they last met in 2019. Back then, at the G20 summit in Canada, Trump was embroiled in domestic legal issues, the Mueller report, and accusations of being Moscow’s candidate.
In a remarkable comeback that saw Donald Trump win the electoral college and popular vote in the Nov. 5 election, the 78-year-old conservative will take office on Jan. 20 more powerful than ever, with Republican control of the Senate and possibly the House of Representatives. While Trump’s pre-election campaign
One idea within U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's team for ending Russia's war involves delaying Kyiv's NATO membership for at least 20 years in exchange for continued arms supplies, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Nov. 6, citing three sources close to Trump.
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