BERLIN — President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine expressed a tense and wary optimism Tuesday about proposed guarantees for Ukraine’s future security, so long as they were detailed and confirmed by the U.S. Congress. But what might make them acceptable to Ukraine, he suggested, would prompt Russia to reject them.
Zelenskyy spoke after two days of peace proposal talks with U.S. and European negotiators, who had emphasized progress Monday and promoted what they called a NATO-like security agreement. Zelenskyy acknowledged that the United States had gone a long way to spelling out what kind of security guarantees it might offer Ukraine in any peace deal, but he added that significant details had still to be worked out. Russia has not been involved in this round of negotiations.
“You and I are people of war, and during war we believe in facts,” Zelenskyy said in an interview over social media with Ukrainian journalists early Tuesday. Those comments came as the Ukrainian president flew from Berlin after the talks, which took place with the Trump administration representatives Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner and with European officials.
Zelenskyy’s comments, directed to his compatriots, were more cautious than his remarks in a news conference Monday evening with Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany. Then, Zelenskyy — as always — made a point of thanking President Donald Trump and his envoys for trying to bring peace to Ukraine and for working to secure its future against further Russian aggression.
The Ukrainian president has said that security guarantees from Europe and the United States are a precondition for his country to make any territorial concessions, and the guarantees and territory lines have emerged as the two major sticking points in the talks.
Zelenskyy described even that sort of trade as a “painful” compromise to which he has not yet agreed.
“There was enough dialogue on the territory,” Zelenskyy said at the Monday news conference in Berlin. “And it seems to me that so far we have different positions, to be honest, but I think that my colleagues have heard my personal position.”