President Trump Says Deal to End Ukraine-Russia War Is Closer

President Zelensky during a meeting with US Ambassador Witkoff, a number of European leaders to the NATO Secretary-General in Berlin. (Twitter/@bundeskanzler)

JAKARTA - US President Donald Trump said on Monday that an agreement to end Russia's war in Ukraine was closer, while European leaders proposed a "multinational force" to enforce a potential peace deal.

The optimistic statement was made when the US envoy, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and a number of European leaders held talks in Berlin to encourage efforts to end the war, although Russia has not reacted to the latest proposal.

"I think we're closer now than we've ever been," President Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, adding he had had "a very long and very good conversation" with Zelensky and others, including leaders of Britain, France, Germany and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

The talks in Berlin were attended by, among others, US Envoy Steve Witkoff, President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

European leaders in a joint statement at the Berlin talks proposed the troops as part of a "strong security guarantee" backed by the US aimed at ensuring Russia would not violate an agreement to end the war, which began with Moscow's full-scale invasion in 2022.

President Zelensky himself previously said that talks with President Trump's envoy "were not easy" but brought "progress" on the issue of security guarantees.

He met for a second day with the US special envoy for talks aimed at ending the war, based on a proposal originally put forward by Trump.

President Zelensky praised the new security guarantees offered by Washington, but also said differences remained over which areas Ukraine should cede to Russia.

"There has been quite a bit of dialogue regarding the region, and I think, frankly, we still have different positions," President Zelensky told reporters.

Meanwhile, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who is optimistic, said the talks had created "an opportunity for a real peace process" and praised the US for offering "substantial" security guarantees.

The European statement - signed by the leaders of Britain, France and Germany - also outlined what it called other points of agreement between European leaders and US officials.

"The Ukrainian military must continue to receive broad support and maintain a peacetime strength of 800,000 troops," the statement said.

The peace would also be guarded by a "US-led ceasefire monitoring and verification mechanism" that would identify violations and "provide early warning of future attacks."

US officials have warned Ukraine it must accept the deal, which they say would provide security guarantees under NATO's Article Five, which calls an attack on one ally an attack on all allies.

"The basis of the agreement is basically to have very, very strong guarantees - like Article Five - as well as very, very strong deterrence" in the size of the Ukrainian military, said a US official on condition of anonymity.

"The guarantee will not apply forever. The guarantee applies now if there is a conclusion reached in a good way," he said.

President Trump has previously been known to have rejected the possibility of Ukraine's official entry into NATO and sided with Russia by calling Kyiv's aspirations to join the alliance as an excuse for Moscow's full-scale invasion.

Chancellor Merz said the "substantial legal and material security guarantees" from the United States were "absolutely extraordinary" and "a very important step forward."