BERLIN: Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected at the Munich Security Conference, where the war with Russia and how to end it will be high on the agenda, organisers said on Monday. Senior representatives from US President Donald Trump's new administration will also be at the gathering in the southern German city from Friday to Sunday. The US delegation would include Vice-President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and presidential envoy on the Ukraine-Russia war Keith Kellogg, MSC chair Christoph Heusgen told a Berlin press conference.
Zelensky is expected to attend in person, allowing for potential talks with representatives of Kyiv's key allies, Heugsen said. "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. "We assume that talks will take place on the sidelines. I will leave it open whether a plan will be announced at the conference. "What I am certain of is that the conference will be used to see the contours of such a plan." Heusgen added that "I hope we will make progress in Munich... the fact that the person responsible for this, Kellogg, will attend is an indication of this for me."
President Donald Trump -- pushing his "America First" agenda -- has questioned US security commitments in Europe and called on allies to drastically boost their defence spending, while his administration has been largely quiet so far on his plans for future Ukraine aid. Washington gave Kyiv tens of billions of dollars in military assistance under president Joe Biden, but Trump's administration has yet to provide additional aid despite several billion dollars in remaining authority carrying over from his predecessor's time in office.
The high-level security meeting in Munich comes shortly before the three-year anniversary of Russia's full-scale attack of Ukraine. The conference could be one of the first opportunities for senior US officials to speak directly with representatives from Ukraine since Trump returned to the White House last month. During his campaign, Trump promised a quick end to the war but provided few details on how he hoped to achieve that goal. Vance was expected to give a speech on Friday in Munich, Heusgen said, adding that no official representatives of the Russian government would be there. "No one has expressed a desire for official Russians... to come," he said. By contrast, organisers had "invited Russians from non-governmental organisations, from the opposition, both from Russia and from exile".
Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth will meanwhile visit the headquarters of two US military commands in Germany before attending a meeting of Nato defence ministers and a gathering of Ukraine's international supporters in Belgium, then travel to Poland for talks with its leaders. In a sign of the new administration's priorities, Hegseth's first trip as defence secretary was to the southern US border, where Trump declared a national emergency on his first day in office. In Brussels, Hegseth "will engage with Nato allies and partners to discuss the need to boost allied defence spending, increase European leadership, and expand defence industrial base capacity on both sides of the Atlantic," the Pentagon said. — AFP
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