EU Expected to Cement Ukraine Support  12/15 06:18

   European leaders are expected to cement support for Ukraine Monday as it 
faces Washington's pressure to swiftly accept a U.S.-brokered peace deal.

   BERLIN (AP) -- European leaders are expected to cement support for Ukraine 
Monday as it faces Washington's pressure to swiftly accept a U.S.-brokered 
peace deal.

   Peace talks between U.S. envoys and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, 
as well as Ukrainian and European officials, continued Monday morning as part 
of a series of meetings in an effort to secure the continent's peace and 
security in the face of an increasingly assertive Russia. The second day of 
talks in Berlin began shortly before noon local time.

   Finnish President Alexander Stubb, one of the key European interlocutors 
between U.S. President Donald Trump and Zelenskyy, was spotted Monday morning 
in downtown Berlin.

   Zelenskyy sat down Sunday with Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff and 
Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner in the German federal chancellery in the hopes 
of bringing the nearly four-year war to a close.

   Washington has tried for months to navigate the demands of each side as 
Trump presses for a swift end to Russia's war and grows increasingly 
exasperated by delays. The search for possible compromises has run into major 
obstacles, including control of Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, which is 
mostly occupied by Russian forces.

   The U.S. government late Sunday said in a social media post on Witkoff's 
account after the five-hour meeting that "a lot of progress was made."

   Earlier in the day, Zelenskyy voiced readiness to drop his country's bid to 
join NATO if the U.S. and other Western nations give Kyiv security guarantees 
similar to those offered to NATO members. But Ukraine continued to reject the 
U.S. push for ceding territory to Russia.

   Putin wants Ukraine to withdraw its forces from the part of the Donetsk 
region still under its control among the key conditions for peace.

   The Russian president also has cast Ukraine's bid to join NATO as a major 
threat to Moscow's security and a reason for launching the full-scale invasion 
in February 2022. The Kremlin has demanded that Ukraine renounce the bid for 
alliance membership as part of any prospective peace settlement.

   Zelenskyy emphasized that any Western security assurances would need to be 
legally binding and supported by the U.S. Congress.

   The Kremlin said Monday that it expected to be updated on the Berlin talks 
by the American side once the talks had finished.

   Asked whether the negotiations could be over by Christmas, presidential 
spokesperson Dmitry Peskov described trying to predict a potential time frame 
for a peace deal as a "thankless task."

   "I can only speak for the Russian side, for President Putin," Peskov said. 
"He is open to peace, to a serious peace and serious decisions. He is 
absolutely not open to any tricks aimed at stalling for time."

   In London, meanwhile, the new head of the MI6 spy agency is set to warn on 
Monday of how Putin's determination to export chaos around the world is 
rewriting the rules of conflict and creating new security challenges.

   Blaise Metreweli will use her first public speech as chief of the United 
Kingdom's foreign intelligence service to say that Britain faces increasingly 
unpredictable and interconnected threats, with emphasis on "aggressive, 
expansionist" Russia.

   Drone strikes continue

   Russia fired 153 drones of various types at Ukraine overnight Sunday into 
Monday, according to Ukraine's Air Force. The air force said early Monday that 
133 drones were neutralized, while 17 more hit their targets.

   In Russia, the defense ministry on Monday said forces destroyed 130 
Ukrainian drones overnight. An additional 16 drones were then destroyed between 
7 a.m. and 8 a.m. local time Monday.

   Eighteen drones were shot down over Moscow itself, the Russian defense 
ministry said.

   Flights were temporarily halted at the city's Domodedovo and Zhukovsky 
airports as part of safety measures, officials said.

   Damage details and casualty figures were not immediately available.

   'Pax Americana' is over

   German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who has spearheaded European efforts to 
support Ukraine alongside French President Emmanuel Macron and U.K. Prime 
Minister Keir Starmer, said Saturday that "the decades of the 'Pax Americana' 
are largely over for us in Europe and for us in Germany as well."

   "Pax Americana" refers to the U.S.'s postwar dominance as a superpower that 
has brought relative peace to the globe.

   Merz warned that Putin's aim is "a fundamental change to the borders in 
Europe, the restoration of the old Soviet Union within its borders."

   "If Ukraine falls, he won't stop," Merz warned during a party conference in 
Munich.

   Macron, meanwhile, vowed Sunday on social platform X that "France is, and 
will remain, at Ukraine's side to build a robust and lasting peace -- one that 
can guarantee Ukraine's security and sovereignty, and that of Europe, over the 
long term."

   Putin has denied plans to attack any European allies.