Top Officials From Ukraine, US, Russia to Meet Friday for Peace Talks at Munich Security Conference

High-level officials from Ukraine, the United States, and Russia will meet at the Munich Security Conference tomorrow to hold face-to-face discussions about ending the war.

US President Donald Trump announced the meeting for the first time on Thursday afternoon while taking questions from reporters in the White House. [Trump’s assertion was later refuted by Kyiv officials – Ed.]

Russia has not officially participated in the conference since 2019.

Comments from officials in Washington, Kyiv, and Moscow about ending the war have steadily increased in recent days as Trump has increasingly pushed to keep his promise of ending the war within his first 100 days in office.  

It was previously announced that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would meet US Vice President JD Vance on Friday on the sidelines of the Munich gathering, but today’s announcement was the first that representatives from Ukraine, the US, and Russia would meet directly.

Other members expected to attend as part of the US delegation include Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Ukraine-Russia envoy Keith Kellogg, conference chair Christoph Heusgen said in a Berlin press conference on Monday.

“We hope that Munich will be used – and we have signs that it will – to make progress with regard to peace in Ukraine,” the former diplomat said.

However, on Wednesday, a German spokesperson told reporters they did not expect any major breakthroughs in peace discussions for Ukraine at the conference. 

“Looking towards Munich and the security conference, I haven’t had any concrete indications that a decisive step could be on the horizon” towards peace talks, government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said in a press conference.

Hebestreit also said that Germany’s position was that “nothing must be decided over Ukrainians’ heads, they must decide how they enter talks with the Russian side.”

On Feb. 12, Trump held separate calls with Zelensky and Putin, later claiming both leaders “want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in the War with Russia/Ukraine.”

Zelensky confirmed shortly after Trump’s announcement that the call with Putin took place, adding in an X post shared about two hours later that he had his own “long and detailed” call with Trump following the Kremlin chat.

Zelensky confirmed shortly after Trump’s announcement that the call with Putin took place, adding in an X post shared about two hours later that he had his own “long and detailed” call with Trump following the Kremlin chat.

“We discussed many aspects – diplomatic, military, and economic – and President Trump informed me about what Putin told him,” Zelensky wrote.