Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy admitted that he would have to make painful concessions in the ongoing peace talks, including giving up Ukraine’s Nato ambitions and ceding some land to Russia, as meetings with the US envoys got underway in Berlin on December 14.

Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner were invited to Berlin at the last minute to meet with the Ukrainian leader as a possible negotiated solution starts to emerge. Optimism that a deal can be done is rising as the talks zero in on security and land, but the gap between the two sides’ positions remains large.

After the Moscow meeting between Witkoff, Kushner and Russian President Vladimir Putin on December 3, the two envoys have been actively engaging in shuttle diplomacy, trying to find compromises that will close the gap.

The first session in Berlin over the weekend went on for over five hours. It was extremely intense, covering all the substantive points, with the discussion over territorial control being the most fraught, according to reports coming out of the meeting. A second session is scheduled for December 15.

The clock is ticking on the negotiations. US President Donald Trump) has made it clear he would like a deal to be closed before the Christmas holidays and threatened to walk away completely if an agreement can’t be found. With the Armed Forces of Russia (AFR) making the most rapid gains on the battlefield since the start of the war, and Ukraine teetering on the edge of a macroeconomic collapse, Putin also wants to see deal finalised quickly, but has said he is also happy to continue fighting in expectation of a military victory sometime in early 2026.

The Kremlin is watching the talks closely and has already said it would probably reject all the proposals from Ukraine and Europe, as the discussions in Berlin are currently focused on the European version of the peace plan, not the Russian version thrashed out in Moscow at the start of the month.

Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy adviser, rejected any EU-backed suggestions as “unlikely to be constructive” and warned the White House that the Kremlin would have “sharp objections” if the US envoys agreed to any European suggestions. “It’s not like there’s going to be anything good there,” Ushakov told the local media. So far, Putin has shown himself to be extremely unwilling to make any concessions to his long-standing demands on Ukraine.

Bridging the plan gap

One of the tasks for Witkoff and Kushner to manage is bridging the gap between the plans. Following the Moscow meeting on December 3 they left with a slightly reduced 27-point peace plan (27PPP) that was almost the same as the original 28-point peace plan (28PPP) drafted by Witkoff and head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, Kirill Dmitriev. (The one point that was dropped was reportedly a call for a general amnesty on all claims of war crimes.)

However, in Berlin Zelenskiy arrived with the E3-Ukraine 20-point peace deal (20PPP) that he drew up with his European partners France, Germany and the UK on December 11.

It appears that part of the talks is to bring the two versions together. Zelenskiy said on December 14 he had received no response from Washington on the amendments made in the 20PPP, but added: "I am receiving all the signals and will be ready for the dialogue that will begin today."

Last week, US President Donald Trump threw his weight behind the 27PPP that came out of the Moscow meeting, lambasting Zelenskiy in public for not having read the plan and saying “Everyone loves the plan – all his people – except Zelenskiy.”

While these two versions are moving closer together, the Kremlin has indicated that the European version of the plan is largely unacceptable to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Nevertheless, as the talks progress, the details of the secondary points in the lists appear to become less important as the negotiations zero in on solving the two main issues: sovereign control over territory and security guarantees.

"The summit in Berlin is important. We are meeting with both the Americans and the Europeans … And today these meetings are taking place in Berlin, today and tomorrow," Zelenskiy said on his way to the summit.

Compromises

Zelenskiy arrived in Berlin ready to make concessions. In the last week, and then in a conversation with journalists on his Telegram channel, Zelenskiy indicated he was prepared to give ground on several points:

-        Ukraine is prepared to forego its Nato ambitions if it receives sufficiently strong bil-lateral security guarantees from its partners; and

-        Zelenskiy is prepared to cede some territory to Russia if that decision is ratified by a referendum.

"The most important thing is that the plan should be as fair as possible, first and foremost for Ukraine, because Russia started the war," Zelenskiy told reporters.

These two points are actually a return to early agreements already reached with Russia.

During the first round of peace talks in Brest, Belarus, in April 2022, the Ukrainian delegation already agreed to give up its Nato ambitions in exchange for bi-lateral security deals. That deal failed when then UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson told Zelenskiy in a meeting in Kyiv that Europe would not offer Ukraine Article 5-style security agreements and urged Zelenskiy to “fight on.” Now the same agreements are back on the table.

Giving up on Nato membership should be moot in any case. Trump and Nato itself has made it crystal clear that there are zero plans to offer Ukraine membership, spelled out at the Vilnius Nato summit in July 2023 and repeated many times since. Zelenskiy told reporters that he could concede to no-Nato, provided Ukraine receives alternative guarantees from the US and Europe.

“We are talking about bilateral security guarantees between Ukraine and the United States — namely, Article 5–like guarantees . . . as well as security guarantees for us from our European partners and from other countries such as Canada, Japan and others,” Zelenskyy told journalists in a WhatsApp chat. “And this is already a compromise on our part.”

Surprisingly, the Trump administration has already offered real Article 5-like security guarantees that include a military commitment as part of the current negotiations with the Kremlin. The EU member states remain a lot more reluctant to commit to coming to Ukraine’s military aid should Russia re-invade after a ceasefire takes hold.

The idea of European bi-lateral agreements got a boost from Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni who attended the talks. She has been an open supporter of European security deals, having proposed the same at the White House summit on August 18, but the idea was not picked up by the other European leaders present.

The idea that Ukraine will have to give up territory has been baked into the scenarios to end the war from the start. While talk of a Ukrainian victory has been bandied about since the start of the war, in its more sober statements, the White House has consistently said the goal is to put Ukraine into the “strongest possible position for when negotiations start.” At the same time the West has refused to arm Ukraine to win the war, and followed a policy of “some, but not enough” support. That has been designed to ensure Ukraine does not lose the war but cannot win either as part of the Western “escalation management” strategy of avoiding a direct clash between Russia and Nato.

Zelenskiy is preparing his public for some unpleasant concessions and will almost certainly include ceding some territory in the talks – something that is banned by the Ukrainian constitution. During a push to end the war by the end of 2024, Zelenskiy proposed holding a referendum to win the authority to give away some land as part of any negotiations with Russia and brought the need for a referendum up again for the first time in a year last week.

“The [peace] plan will certainly not be one that everyone likes. There are many compromises in one or another version of the plan,” Zelenskyy said.

Front line freeze

The talks are now focused on finding a formula to freeze the fighting along the 1,200km long front line.

The Kremlin is insisting that the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) give up control of those parts of Donetsk it still controls, including the “Fortress Line” of heavy defences built in the last year.

Bankova refuses to give up this land and wants to freeze the line of contract where it is currently.

Both sides appeared to reject Trump’s proposal that all troops be withdrawn from the Donbas region to create a “free economic zone” in parts of eastern Ukraine now held by Kyiv, the Financial Times reports. At the same time there was no mention of the mooted Korean DMZ-model that was floated last week as an alternative.

Zelenskyy said at the weekend the FEZ idea was “not fair.” The only fair option is if “the sides stop where they are, and then try to resolve all broader issues through diplomacy.”

“If Ukrainian troops withdraw five to 10 kilometres, for example, then why should Russian troops not also withdraw deeper into the occupied territories by the same distance?” he asked, the FT reports. “This is a question to which there is still no answer, but it is extremely sensitive and very heated.”

Ushakov said last week that Russia would only accept full control over the Donbas and nothing else. Commenting on Zelenskiy remarks that Ukraine will eventually regain control over the Crimea and eventually join Nato, Ushakov said both proposals, “one million per cent won’t happen.”

Zelenskiy said he was ready for "dialogue" at the latest round of high-stakes talks and hoped the US would back the idea of a freeze of the line along its current path.

"The fairest possible option is to 'stay where we are.' This is true because it is a ceasefire … I know that Russia does not view this positively and I would like the Americans to support us on this issue," Zelenskiy told reporters shortly before arriving in Berlin.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is hosting talks in Berlin, but has played only a small role in the discussions, highlighting the EU bystander role in the peace talks that are being led by the White House that is facilitating the first contact between Bankova and the Kremlin, albeit indirectly.