Berlin will take part in providing security guarantees for Ukraine alongside European partners but the talks are at an early stage and must be shaped by Kyiv, German Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil said on Monday (August 25) in Ukraine's capital.
"It is also clear that we as a Western alliance are now working together with Ukraine on the question of security guarantees," said Klingbeil during his first visit to Kyiv.
"This is an intensive process that is still in its early stages, but it is absolutely clear – and I want to emphasise this again here – that we in Germany will of course also bear responsibility."
Klingbeil, who also serves as Germany's finance minister, said in order to achieve that goal the Ukrainian army needed to be strengthened and arms production inside Ukraine needed to be ramped up.
"It must also be clear that any negotiations must begin with a ceasefire, meaning that Vladimir Putin must stop the killing", Klingbeil added.
U.S. President Donald Trump has pressed for a quick end to the war, but Kyiv and its allies are concerned he could seek to force an agreement on Russia's terms.
"It is now up to Vladimir Putin to show that he has a serious interest in a lasting, just peace," Klingbeil said. "I would like to make it very clear that it is now up to Putin to take the next step."
Klingbeil said Ukraine needed to be involved in the talks and there needed to be a ceasefire and reliable security guarantees for a lasting peace.
Among options presented this week for security for Ukraine after a possible peace deal, both French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer supported troop deployments as part of a coalition of the willing.
Merz has also signalled openness to Germany's participation but would face a backlash both from within and outside his political spectrum on the matter.
According to Klingbeil's ministry, the German government has supported Ukraine with €50.5 billion ($59.18 billion) since the war started.
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The Taliban leadership in Afghanistan opted out of a major regional meeting held in Iran’s capital Tehran on Sunday.
Australia vowed stricter gun laws on Monday as it began mourning victims of its worst mass shooting in almost 30 years, in which police accused a father-and-son duo of killing 16 people at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach.
Oil prices are rising worldwide as investors assess supply risks linked to growing tensions between the United States and Venezuela after the former seized an oil tanker Skipper on 10 December, a move Caracas calls “international piracy”.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan reiterated his offer to host Ukraine-Russia peace talks in Ankara, at his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The talks took place on the sidelines of the international Forum for Peace and Trust in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, on Friday (12 December).
Russia’s human rights commissioner, Tatyana Moskalkova, has said that Ukraine has not provided Moscow with a list of thousands of children it alleges were taken illegally to Russia, despite the issue being discussed during talks in Istanbul.
Iranian authorities have seized a foreign tanker carrying more than 6 million litres of smuggled fuel in the Sea of Oman, detaining all 18 crew members on board.
An explosive device found in a vehicle linked to one of the alleged attackers in Bondi shooting has been secured and removed according to Police. The incident left 12 people dead.
The latest round of clashes between Thailand and Cambodia has left 15 Thai soldiers dead and 270 others injured, Thailand’s Ministry of Defence spokesman Surasant Kongsiri said at a press conference on Saturday.
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Syria has arrested five people suspected of having links to a deadly attack on a joint U.S.–Syrian convoy in the central town of Palmyra on Saturday, the country’s Interior Ministry said.
The head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, the foreign spy service known as MI6, has warned that Russia "remains an aggressive and expansionist threat", vowing sustained support for Ukraine and calling for greater use of technology to protect UK security.
Odesa residents remained without power for a third straight day on Monday (15 December) after a Russian missile and drone strike crippled the power grid on Saturday (13 December).
Fighting along the Thailand–Cambodia border has entered a fifth consecutive day, despite U.S. President Donald Trump claiming he had brokered a ceasefire between the two sides.
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