US and Ukrainian officials said they made substantial progress in two days of talks aimed to bring an end to Russia's invasion closer, with Washington reportedly offering Kyiv security guarantees modeled on NATO's Article 5 mutual defense pledge.
While questions remained about key issues, including the fate of territory that Kyiv continues to hold in the eastern Donetsk region, US President Donald Trump said it appeared as though a deal to end Europe's largest and deadliest conflict since World War II was closer than ever.
"We're trying to get it done, and I think we're closer now," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on December 15 after European, US, and Ukrainian delegations held several days of talks in Berlin.
"We had numerous conversations with President Putin of Russia, and I think we're closer now than we have been ever, and we'll see what we can do."
Trump said he had spoken recently to Putin but gave no details or timeline of the conversation.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the talks were tough but useful, and his chief negotiator, Rustem Umerov, said that "real progress" was achieved in Berlin with White House special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's son in law, Jared Kushner, among other US delegates.
"These conversations are always not easy, I'll be honest with you. But it was a productive conversation, with a lot of details, really a lot," Zelenskyy said at a German-Ukrainian Business Forum that followed the US-Ukraine meeting.
At a news conference later with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Zelenskyy said the sides "have differences" on the matter of territory, saying that the issue is "not closed."
"The territorial issue is painful. We know 100 percent what Russia wants -- and it is key for me that the Americans heard me on this," Zelenskyy said.
"I believe that the Americans, as mediators, will be probing various ways how to resolve issues" including territory and funding for Ukraine's reconstruction.
Zelenskyy has pushed back against proposals that would require Kyiv to cede, even de facto, the portion of the Donetsk region that its forces still hold. And if Ukraine does have to pull back from the front lines in the Donbas, he suggested Russian forces would have to do so as well.
Russia has steadfastly insisted on territorial concessions giving it Ukraine's eastern regions known as the Donbas. If not, it will continue to take the land by force, Putin has said.
Merz was upbeat, saying there is now the biggest chance for a real peace process since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022 and that the United States has offered a major material contribution to security guarantees for Ukraine, a key issue.
A group of seven EU countries, EU leaders, and Zelenskyy produced a six-point joint statement throwing support behind an 800,000-strong Ukrainian Army, a European-led multinational force, and a US-led monitoring, verification, and deconfliction mechanism to enforce an eventual cease-fire.
Meanwhile several news agencies quoted US officials as describing the proposed protections discussed the Berlin talks as "Article 5-like."
NATO's founding treaty contains Article 5, which stipulates that an attack against one member of the group is considered an attack against them all.
There were no details on how Washington would provide such security guarantees, though the officials were quoted as saying such an offer wouldn't be on the table forever.
Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on December 15 that barring Ukraine from joining NATO is a "cornerstone" of any peace deal in the Kremlin's eyes, and that Russia expects to hear from US officials following the talks in Berlin, which Moscow was not involved in.
With the US pushing for a peace deal, a key issue has been the fate of the part of Donetsk region in Ukraine's east that Kyiv's forces still hold despite years of efforts by Russia to capture the Donbas, which comprises the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, in its entirety.
Could The EU Use Frozen Russian Assets To Help Ukraine?
EU leaders are set to decide at a summit on December 18 whether the EU can use tens of billions in frozen Russian assets to back a large loan to Ukraine, whose economy is struggling nearly four years into the all-out war.
"If we do not succeed in this, then the European Union's ability to act will be severely damaged for years, if not longer, and we will show the world that we are incapable of standing together and acting at such a crucial moment in our history," Merz said.
Zelenskyy said the United States is proposing creating a "free economic zone" in the part of the Donetsk region that Kyiv still controls, with Ukrainian forces withdrawing and Russian forces forbidden to enter.
Trump has been seeking to broker an end to the war since he took office for a second time in January of this year, but progress has been slow and Putin has said Russia will achieve its goals by force if it cannot do so through diplomacy.
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said last week that Trump is "extremely frustrated with both sides of this war."
Russian forces have continued to bombard cities across Ukraine and try to press forward on the front lines in the east and south amid the latest flurry of diplomatic meetings.
Ukraine main security service, the SBU, said on December 15 that Ukrainian forces struck and caused critical damage to a Russian submarine in the Black Sea port of Novorossiisk, where part of Russia's fleet is based.
