BERLIN — European leaders are ready to assume the leading role in negotiations to end Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a spokesperson for German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Monday.
“What is new, I believe, is that this process is now gaining new momentum in Europe,” Stefan Kornelius, Merz’s spokesperson, said following a meeting between the leaders of Ukraine, France, Germany and the U.K in London late Sunday. “Another new development is that we are taking up and continuing the negotiation process that the U.S. has largely led. We are doing this in close coordination with the U.S.”
U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, have led efforts to broker negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, since early 2025 with few tangible results. The European initiative to assume a leading role in peace talks comes as Washington focuses increasingly on ending the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.
In a joint statement on Sunday, Merz and his counterparts in France and the U.K. — together with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — called for “direct dialogue between Ukraine and Russia with active U.S. and European participation” and set out five conditions to achieve peace, including an immediate and complete ceasefire.
The current contact line between Russian and Ukrainian forces must be the starting point for negotiations, the statement read, and Ukraine must have “robust and legally binding” security guarantees in place. Russian assets must remain frozen until the Kremlin “ceases its war of aggression and compensates Ukraine for the damage caused by the war.”
European leaders will further discuss their approach to potential peace talks at a G7 meeting in Evian and during a European Council summit in Brussels next week, Kornelius said.
“We need the broadest possible support from all European partners in order to actually push toward peace,” he said.
It remains unclear, however, whether Russian President Vladimir Putin is willing to sit down with European leaders, who were excluded from direct negotiations despite having long sought a greater role in shaping a possible resolution to the conflict.
Europeans countries, and particularly Germany, have become Kyiv’s biggest military supporters and would likely take a tougher line in negotiations with Moscow than their U.S. counterparts. Zelenskyy sent an open letter to Putin last Thursday urging him to meet to end the fighting, but Putin brushed off the plea the following day.
Putin had previously suggested Kremlin-friendly former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder as a potential negotiator in Ukraine peace talks. That proposal was quickly dismissed by European capitals, where it was widely viewed as a calculated attempt by Putin to divide the continent and portray himself as a good-faith negotiating partner, knowing the proposal was unlikely to be accepted.
Kornelius said it “could take weeks or even months” to get Putin to the negotiation table, and that “only a strong Ukraine and pressure on Russia will persuade Putin to back down.”
He stressed that Europe needs to be ready for when that time comes.
“We also need to establish a willingness to engage in dialogue and agree on the conditions under which such talks can even take place,” he said. “All of this is part of the preparation. We are in a phase of reorientation.”
