Europe ready to lead ‘multinational force’ in Ukraine as part of US peace plan | Ukraine

Europe is ready to lead a “multinational force” in Ukraine as part of a US proposal for a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine, European leaders have said.

In a statement, the leaders of the UK, France, Germany and eight other European countries said that troops from a “coalition of the willing” with US support could “assist in the regeneration of Ukraine’s forces, in securing Ukraine’s skies, and in supporting safer seas, including through operating inside Ukraine”.

The proposal was part of a new package of security guarantees, backed by the White House, that could mark a breakthrough in reaching a peace deal between Moscow and Kyiv, US and European leaders have said. But they added that significant differences remained over the future status of the Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia.

Under the proposal, Ukraine would have western support to maintain a standing army of 800,000 troops, the US would lead a “ceasefire monitoring and verification mechanism” to provide early warning of any future attack, and the European countries would also sign a “legally binding commitment, subject to national procedures, to take measures to restore peace and security in the case of a future armed attack”. Europe would also back Ukraine’s accession to the European Union.

The deal would effectively provide “article five-like” guarantees to Ukraine, according to two US officials briefed on the negotiations, comparing the security guarantees to those provided to Nato allies from foreign attacks.

The US presented the new package at talks in Berlin this week with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as well as senior diplomats and security officials from European allies. The US officials said that they believed Russia would accept the security guarantees presented at the talks, which would mark a significant relaxation in the Kremlin’s demands for limitations on the size of Ukraine’s army and opposition to troops from Nato countries operating in Ukraine.

The American delegation, which was led by the US envoy Steve Witkoff and Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, said Zelenskyy and European leaders had responded positively to the White House’s latest proposal for security guarantees resembling those given to Nato allies, and intended to prevent Russia from resuming its invasion if a peace agreement is reached.

“I think the Ukrainians would tell you, as would the Europeans, that this is the most robust set of security protocols they have ever seen,” said one US official briefed on the negotiations. “It is a very, very strong package. I think hopefully the Russians are going to look at it and say to themselves: ‘That’s OK, because we have no intention [of restarting the war].’ We’re going to take them at their word.”

US officials declined to give specific details of what that security package would include and who would defend Ukraine if Russia resumed its invasion after a peace deal was reached. They confirmed the US would not put boots on the ground in Ukraine as part of the deal.

Nonetheless, the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, told a news conference on Monday he believed the two sides were the closest to a real peace process since Russia’s large-scale invasion began in 2022.

“What the US has placed on the table here in Berlin in terms of legal and material guarantees is really considerable,” Merz said during a joint press conference with Zelenskyy.

The Ukrainian president said he welcomed the “productive” discussions, as Kyiv’s top peace negotiator hailed “real progress” in the second round of talks in Berlin.

The security guarantees are considered a key factor of a potential peace deal. Britain’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, had said earlier that a deal between Russia and Ukraine would fail if it did not include “robust” security guarantees from the west.

“It’s really important we attend to this in detail,” he said. “[Vladimir] Putin has shown time and again that he will keep coming back for more if he sees the chance.”

US officials said on Monday they were still “brainstorming” the future status of the occupied territories of Ukraine under a peace deal, adding that they were considering these areas becoming an “economic free zone”. But they said there remained significant differences on the control and status of the territories taken by Russia.

“Ultimately, if we can get that defined, then it will really get to [Russia and Ukraine] to work out the final issues of sovereignty and to see if there’s a deal that can be done between them,” said a US official briefed on the talks.

The two sides were also not in agreement on the future operations of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is located in Ukraine but is under Russian control. US officials said they wanted the two sides to split the power produced by the plant “50/50”. US negotiators claimed they had resolved “90%” of the disputes between the Russian and Ukrainian sides.

Zelenskyy described the talks with the US side as “not easy” but said they had made headway. He said Russia was using its relentless strikes as leverage in negotiations and noted that not a single power station in Ukraine had been spared attack.

Rustem Umerov, the secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine, also struck an upbeat note on the discussions: “Over the past two days, Ukrainian-US negotiations have been constructive and productive, with real progress achieved,” he said.

Umerov wrote on X that Witkoff and Kushner were “working extremely constructively to help Ukraine find a way to a peace agreement that lasts”.

A German government spokesperson said earlier that Witkoff and Kushner had also been invited to the working dinner. Witkoff said in a social media post that “a lot of progress was made” after he and Kushner met Zelenskyy for five-and-a-half hours at Merz’s chancellery on Sunday, without disclosing details.

A picture released by Merz’s team showed him sitting beside Zelenskyy in a gesture of solidarity, across the table from Witkoff and Kushner, but the chancellor did not join their talks.

Trump has appeared increasingly impatient to bring about an end to four years of fighting, which he at first sought by Thanksgiving at the end of November. Zelenskyy has said the US leader is targeting Christmas as a deadline for a “full understanding” on a peace plan.

The search for viable terms for an end to the war has run into major obstacles, including a dispute over control of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, which is occupied mostly by Russian forces.

Zelenskyy on Sunday expressed readiness to drop his country’s bid to join Nato if the US and other western nations gave Kyiv legally binding security guarantees similar to those offered to alliance members.

He also said he hoped Washington would accept freezing the frontline where it was, rather than Ukraine ceding the entire Donbas region, which comprises Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.

Putin has described Ukraine’s drive to join Nato as a major threat to Moscow’s security and a reason for launching the full-scale invasion in February 2022. “Naturally this issue is one of the cornerstones and, of course, it is subject to special discussion,” the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters on Monday, adding that Moscow was expecting a US briefing on the Berlin discussions when they were over.

European leaders stressed that the outcome of the talks on Ukraine would affect their own countries’ security for decades to come. Merz said at the weekend that Putin’s goal was “a fundamental change to the borders in Europe, the restoration of the old Soviet Union within its borders”.

“If Ukraine falls, he won’t stop,” the German chancellor told a conference of fellow conservatives in Munich.

Russia has denied it intends to attack Nato members.

In London, meanwhile, the head of Britain’s foreign spy service, MI6, has warned that Russia poses an “aggressive, expansionist” threat in her first speech since taking office.

Blaise Metreweli took over from Richard Moore in October, becoming the first woman to lead MI6.

She said Putin was not serious about trying to end the war in Ukraine, describing him as “dragging out negotiations” and shifting the burden of the conflict on to his own population.

The EU, meanwhile, is scrambling this week to agree a plan on financing Ukraine in the coming years by using frozen Russian assets. A leaders’ meeting is scheduled to begin on Thursday and a deal still appears elusive.