{"id":193695,"date":"2025-12-15T23:07:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T23:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/193695\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T23:07:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T23:07:07","slug":"what-did-ukraine-peace-talks-in-berlin-achieve-and-what-happens-next-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/193695\/","title":{"rendered":"What did Ukraine peace talks in Berlin achieve \u2013 and what happens next? | Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US has held talks with Ukrainian and European leaders in Berlin about a potential peace deal between Ukraine<\/a> and Russia. But what was the outcome, and what comes next?<\/p>\n

What happened in the Ukraine talks in Berlin? <\/p>\n

The talks focused on security guarantees the US and Europe could offer Ukraine as part of a future peace deal with the Kremlin. On Monday, European leaders, including Keir Starmer, published a joint statement with a list of the security guarantees on the table. They included:<\/p>\n

A European-led \u201cmultinational force\u201d<\/a> to support Ukraine\u2019s army and defend its skies and seas.<\/p>\n

A \u201clegally binding commitment\u201d from the UK and other European nations to \u201ctake measures to restore peace and security in the case of a future armed attack\u201d.<\/p>\n

European support for Ukraine\u2019s accession to the EU.<\/p>\n

\u201cSustained and significant support\u201d from Europe to help Ukraine \u201cbuild its armed forces\u201d, which should remain at a peacetime level of 800,000 troops (Russia has demanded that Ukraine cut the size of its armed forces far lower).<\/p>\n

A US-led \u201cceasefire monitoring and verification mechanism\u201d to \u201cprovide early warning of any future attack\u201d.<\/p>\n

Investment in Ukrainian reconstruction, which may include Russian sovereign assets that have been frozen in Europe.<\/p>\n

We have had peace talks before. Why are these important? <\/p>\n

European leaders spoke unusually positively about these proposals for defending Ukraine from further aggression. Kyiv would want the US to send troops to Ukraine as a \u201ctripwire\u201d to prevent a Russian attack, but the next best thing would be European troops from Nato countries on the ground in Ukraine helping defend the country.<\/p>\n

The joint statement signed by the leaders of the UK, France, Germany, Italy and seven other European nations said this would \u201cprovide robust security guarantees and economic recovery support measures for Ukraine in the context of an agreement on ending the war\u201d. The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, told reporters \u201cwe now have the chance for a real peace process\u201d.<\/p>\n

So is the war over?<\/p>\n

No. This is a kind of shuttle diplomacy with Ukraine and its European allies on one side, and Russia on the other. After this, the US negotiators led by envoy Steve Witkoff and Donald Trump\u2019s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, would take the proposal back to the Russians.<\/p>\n

But it is not at all clear that the Kremlin would sign a peace deal at this point.<\/p>\n

First, Russians may not accept troops from Nato countries in Ukraine (the Kremlin has said this is a red line in the past). US officials briefed on the negotiations claim Russia would be ready to sign a deal with these security guarantees in place for Ukraine, but the Trump administration has been overly optimistic about achieving a ceasefire before.<\/p>\n

And second, the two sides still have not agreed on what to do with the Ukrainian territory that has been occupied by Russia. The US delegation led by Witkoff and Kushner was said to be \u201cbrainstorming\u201d what to do with the occupied territories by turning them into \u201ceconomic free zones\u201d. But really they are trying to find a way to make Ukraine agree to cede its sovereign territory to an invading army, something that Kyiv has said it does not want to do.<\/p>\n

US negotiators said they were 90% of the way to a deal. But some of the hardest questions remain unresolved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The US has held talks with Ukrainian and European leaders in Berlin about a potential peace deal between…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-193695","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}