Germany expressed doubts that Moscow would be willing to compromise to end the Ukraine war at talks to be held in the UAE between Ukrainian, Russian and US envoys.
"There are still major questions about the extent to which Russia is really willing to move away from its maximalist demands", government spokesman Steffen Meyer said, shortly after Moscow made clear it was still demanding that Kyiv withdraw from the Donbas.
He also said any agreement reached "must be geared towards achieving long-term and sustainable peace.
"Nothing would be gained if a peace agreement ultimately only gave Russia some breathing space and allowed it to launch new attacks at a later date.
"That is why we have focused very strongly on the issue of security guarantees".
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he had agreed during a meeting with US President Donald Trump in Davos on what post-war US security guarantees for Ukraine would look like, without giving details.
Meyer also said that, while Germany and other EU members were not directly participating in Friday's negotiations, Berlin was still "very closely involved politically through the talks of the past weeks and the ongoing exchange".
The spokesman did not reply when asked to comment on Zelensky's criticism in a fiery address at the World Economic Forum in Davos that the EU lacked "political will" in countering Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
Meanwhile, Russia said it was not dropping its key demand that Ukraine pull out of its eastern Donbas region, ahead of three-way talks between Ukrainian, Russian and American officials in the UAE later on Friday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said territory remained the key issue and would be on the agenda for the talks, which look set to be the first direct public negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv on a plan being pushed by US President Donald Trump to end the almost four-year-long war.
High-level teams from the three countries were headed for Abu Dhabi for the negotiations — a day after US President Donald Trump met with Zelensky in Davos and hours after US envoy Steve Witkoff held late-night talks with Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin.
While a diplomatic push to end Europe's worst conflict since World War II has gained pace in recent weeks, Moscow and Kyiv remain at odds over the key issue of territory in a post-war settlement.
Russia, which launched its war in 2022, said it was not dropping its maximalist demand that Kyiv withdraw from the eastern Donbas region — a term deemed unacceptable to Ukraine.
"Russia's position is well known on the fact that Ukraine, Ukrainian armed forces, have to leave the territory of the Donbas. They must be withdrawn from there", Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. — AFP
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