Donald Trump is sending his envoy, Steve Witkoff, to Berlin this weekend to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders as the United States pushes Ukraine to make major concessions to end the conflict with Russia.
Hostilities between Ukraine and Russia have intensified overnight. Russia claimed on Saturday to have launched hypersonic missile strikes against Ukrainian industrial and energy facilities in retaliation for alleged Ukrainian strikes on civilian targets in Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reported Russian strikes that damaged over a dozen civilian facilities, leaving thousands without electricity across seven regions. An 80-year-old woman was killed in the northeastern region of Sumy, according to the regional governor.
Meanwhile, in central Russia, authorities confirmed that two people died on Saturday following a Ukrainian drone attack on a residential building in Saratov.
Trump has expressed frustration with the progress of negotiations surrounding his plan to resolve the devastating conflict, which began with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, claiming hundreds of thousands of lives.
While Kyiv and its allies aim to modify the US-proposed plan, viewed initially as overly favourable to Russia, the White House confirmed on Friday that Witkoff will attend talks in Germany. Witkoff, who met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow earlier in December, is expected to meet Zelensky and unspecified European leaders in Berlin.
Zelensky was already set to travel to Berlin on Monday to meet European allies amid ongoing diplomatic efforts centred on the US plan, introduced nearly a month ago. Negotiations are currently stalled over territorial issues, with the US reportedly urging Ukraine to make significant concessions, which Kyiv views as unfair.
Zelensky alleges Washington wants Ukrainian forces to withdraw from parts of Donetsk region they still control, creating a demilitarised “free economic zone,” without imposing similar conditions on Russian occupation forces. In return, Russia would withdraw from small areas in Sumy, Kharkiv, and Dnipropetrovsk regions while retaining larger territories in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south.
European and Ukrainian negotiators have requested security guarantees from the US to protect against future Russian offensives before any territorial agreements can be made, according to France’s presidency.
A US official told AFP that the plan envisions Ukraine joining the European Union by 2027, though such rapid accession may face opposition from certain EU member states with strained relations with Ukraine, such as Hungary.
Time is running out for Trump, whose spokesperson said on Thursday, “He’s tired of meetings that exist only for the sake of meeting.”
