Munich Updates: Zelensky Tells Vance Ukraine Needs ‘Security Guarantees’ for Peace Talks – Newsweek
Source: Newsweek
Hannah Parry is a Newsweek Live Blog Editor based in New York. Her focus is reporting on U.S. politics and society. She has covered politics, tech and crime extensively.Hannah joined Newsweek in 2024 and previously worked as an assistant editor at The U.S. Sun and as a senior reporter and assistant news editor at The Daily Mail. She is a graduate of the University of Nottingham. You can get in touch with Hannah by emailing h.parry@newsweek.com. Languages: English.
Daniel Orton is an editor on the live news team at Newsweek, based in London, U.K. He was previously a video news editor at the company between 2017 and 2019, before spending several years as a senior video journalist on the social news team at The Wall Street Journal, where he primarily produced short-form and breaking-news videos for the Journal’s X (Twitter) page, with a focus on business, finance and markets. He also produced longer videos for other platforms on a wide range of subjects, from the U.K. royal family’s finances to the cost of tackling climate change. He has also worked for The London Evening Standard, Fox News and Bauer Media.
Ellie Cook is a Newsweek security and defense reporter based in London, U.K. Her work focuses largely on the Russia-Ukraine war, the U.S. military, weapons systems and emerging technology. She joined Newsweek in January 2023, having previously worked as a reporter at the Daily Express, and is a graduate of International Journalism at City, University of London. Languages: English, Spanish.You can reach Ellie via email at e.cook@newsweek.com.
Continuous updates; facts and sources are still being cross-checked.
Ukrainian President Volodymy Zelensky tells U.S. Vice President JD Vance that his country needs “security guarantees” for peace talks, as Donald Trump pushes for negotiations to end the war.
Speaking in a joint appearance with Vance, after their meeting at the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Friday, Zelensky said they’d had “good conversations today,” which he said would likely be the first of many. He added that now the U.S. and Ukraine needed to “prepare the plan how to stop Putin and finish the war.”
Vance agreed that he and Zelensky had a “number of fruitful conversations and a number of things to follow up and work on.”
“Fundamentally, the goal is as President (Donald) Trump outlined it: We want the war to come to a close. We want the killing to stop, but we want to achieve a durable, lasting peace, not the kind of peace that’s going to have eastern Europe in conflict just a couple years down the road,” he said.
When asked how negotiations would progress if Zelensky is not ready to speak with Putin at the table, Vance said it was important “for us to get together and start to have the conversations that are going to be necessary to bring this thing to a close.” But he declined to go into details.
“That’s all I’m going to say for now, because I want to preserve the optionality here for the negotiators and our respective teams to bring this thing to a responsible close,” Vance said.
Zelensky had urged the United States “not to make any decisions about Ukraine without Ukraine” ahead of the meeting.
Earlier Friday, Vance launched a blistering attack on America’s European allies, warning that free speech was “in retreat” across the continent, as he told European leaders that America was worried about the “threat from within.”
President Donald Trump is taking a significant gamble with his approach to Ukraine. By pushing toward an endgame and engaging Russian President Vladimir Putin so warmly, he risks making premature concessions to a leader whose ambitions may extend far beyond Ukraine.
This week on Fox News, Trump suggested that Ukraine “may be Russian some day” and floated the idea that U.S. aid should come with strings attached—specifically, access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth signaled that Ukrainian NATO membership is off the table. To many this may seem like pragmatic dealmaking, but if Putin believes the United States is ready to accept a Russian-controlled Ukraine he’ll see little reason to stop there.
It’s not paranoid to think that Russia’s—not only Putin’s—ambitions do not end with Ukraine. If they perceive weakness in Western resolve, he could set his sights on Moldova, the Baltics, or seek greater influence (even restored control) over Central and Eastern Europe. That is why U.S. policy toward Ukraine has never been just about Ukraine—it is about whether military aggression in Europe will be tolerated or deterred.
JD Vance has met with the leader of Germany’s far-right AfD party, Alice Weidel, while in Munich.
The Alternative for Germany party (AfD) is backed by Trump closest ally and world’s richest man, Elon Musk.
Last month, Musk appeared via video feed at an AfD rally, telling the crowd to “move on” from past guilt, ahead of Germany’s snap election in two weeks.
German broadcaster ZDF reported that Vance and Weidel’s meeting lasted for
Read more: Click here