Munich Updates: Zelensky Tells Vance Ukraine Needs ‘Security Guarantees’ for Peace Talks – Newsweek

Hannah Parry is a Newsweek Live Blog Editor based in New York. Her focus is reporting on U.S. politics and society. She has covered politics, tech and crime extensively.Hannah joined Newsweek in 2024 and previously worked as an assistant editor at The U.S. Sun and as a senior reporter and assistant news editor at The Daily Mail. She is a graduate of the University of Nottingham. You can get in touch with Hannah by emailing h.parry@newsweek.com. Languages: English.Daniel Orton is an editor on the live news team at Newsweek, based in London, U.K. He was previously a video news editor at the company between 2017 and 2019, before spending several years as a senior video journalist on the social news team at The Wall Street Journal, where he primarily produced short-form and breaking-news videos for the Journal’s X (Twitter) page, with a focus on business, finance and markets. He also produced longer videos for other platforms on a wide range of subjects, from the U.K. royal family’s finances to the cost of tackling climate change. He has also worked for The London Evening Standard, Fox News and Bauer Media.Ellie Cook is a Newsweek security and defense reporter based in London, U.K. Her work focuses largely on the Russia-Ukraine war, the U.S. military, weapons systems and emerging technology. She joined Newsweek in January 2023, having previously worked as a reporter at the Daily Express, and is a graduate of International Journalism at City, University of London. Languages: English, Spanish.You can reach Ellie via email at e.cook@newsweek.com.  Continuous updates; facts and sources are still being cross-checked.Ukrainian President Volodymy Zelensky tells U.S. Vice President JD Vance that his country needs “security guarantees” for peace talks, as Donald Trump pushes for negotiations to end the war.Speaking in a joint appearance with Vance, after their meeting at the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Friday, Zelensky said they’d had “good conversations today,” which he said would likely be the first of many. He added that now the U.S. and Ukraine needed to “prepare the plan how to stop Putin and finish the war.”Vance agreed that he and Zelensky had a “number of fruitful conversations and a number of things to follow up and work on.””Fundamentally, the goal is as President (Donald) Trump outlined it: We want the war to come to a close. We want the killing to stop, but we want to achieve a durable, lasting peace, not the kind of peace that’s going to have eastern Europe in conflict just a couple years down the road,” he said.When asked how negotiations would progress if Zelensky is not ready to speak with Putin at the table, Vance said it was important “for us to get together and start to have the conversations that are going to be necessary to bring this thing to a close.” But he declined to go into details.”That’s all I’m going to say for now, because I want to preserve the optionality here for the negotiators and our respective teams to bring this thing to a responsible close,” Vance said.Zelensky had urged the United States “not to make any decisions about Ukraine without Ukraine” ahead of the meeting.Earlier Friday, Vance launched a blistering attack on America’s European allies, warning that free speech was “in retreat” across the continent, as he told European leaders that America was worried about the “threat from within.”Newsweek’s live blog is closed.President Donald Trump is taking a significant gamble with his approach to Ukraine. By pushing toward an endgame and engaging Russian President Vladimir Putin so warmly, he risks making premature concessions to a leader whose ambitions may extend far beyond Ukraine.This week on Fox News, Trump suggested that Ukraine “may be Russian some day” and floated the idea that U.S. aid should come with strings attached—specifically, access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth signaled that Ukrainian NATO membership is off the table. To many this may seem like pragmatic dealmaking, but if Putin believes the United States is ready to accept a Russian-controlled Ukraine he’ll see little reason to stop there.It’s not paranoid to think that Russia’s—not only Putin’s—ambitions do not end with Ukraine. If they perceive weakness in Western resolve, he could set his sights on Moldova, the Baltics, or seek greater influence (even restored control) over Central and Eastern Europe. That is why U.S. policy toward Ukraine has never been just about Ukraine—it is about whether military aggression in Europe will be tolerated or deterred.Read in full from Dan Perry on Newsweek.JD Vance has met with the leader of Germany’s far-right AfD party, Alice Weidel, while in Munich.The Alternative for Germany party (AfD) is backed by Trump closest ally and world’s richest man, Elon Musk.Last month, Musk appeared via video feed at an AfD rally, telling the crowd to “move on” from past guilt, ahead of Germany’s snap election in two weeks.German broadcaster ZDF reported that Vance and Weidel’s meeting lasted for about 30 minutes and they covered politics in Germany and Ukraine.Rep, Seth Moulton, a Democrat from Massachusetts, branded Vance’s speech a “very hypocritical lecture.””There is a lot of things you could agree with in the speech, but the hypocrisy was unbelievable,” Moulton said at an event in Munch today. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard a more hypocritical speech in my life.”Moulton pointed to Vance telling European leaders not to censor the media, even as the Trump administration indefinitely bans The Associated Press from the Oval Office for referring to the newly renamed Gulf of America as the Gulf of Mexico.Democrat Senator Richard Blumenthal, of Connecticut, criticized Vice President JD Vance for failing to address Ukraine or Russia in his speech at the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Friday.”No mention of Ukraine, not a word about Russia—VP Vance’s scolding lecture to Europe about free speech at the Munich Security Conference today was a complete embarrassment. He missed a critical imperative to clarify the Administration’s confused, contradictory signals,” he said.No mention of Ukraine, not a word about Russia—VP Vance’s scolding lecture to Europe about free speech at the Munich Security Conference today was a complete embarrassment. He missed a critical imperative to clarify the Administration’s confused, contradictory signals.Donald Trump said he had a “friendly” call with Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer.He added that Starmer had offered to visit Trump in the U.S., which he had agreed to in the next week or so.”Friendly meeting, very good. We have a lot of good things going on,” he said.Republican Sen. Roger Wicker, of Mississippi, criticized Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for ruling out a return to Ukraine original borders during negotiations.Wicker, the chairman of the panel that oversees the Pentagon, called the statement a “rookie mistake.”Hegseth “made a rookie mistake in Brussels and he’s walked back some of what he said but not that line,” he told Politico.”I don’t know who wrote the speech — it is the kind of thing Tucker Carlson could have written, and Carlson is a fool,” Wicker said.Wicker, who had supported Hegseth’s controversial nomination as defense secretary, said he had been “surprised” by Hegseth’s comments.”Everybody knows … you don’t say before your first meeting what you will agree to and what you won’t agree to,” Wicker said.Videos claiming Canada may be preparing for war with the United States spread across social media, but two retired U.S. military leaders told Newsweek that war between the two countries isn’t going to happen.President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he wants Canada to become the 51st state and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was caught on a hot mic recently saying Trump’s talk is a “real thing,” fueling concerns on social media about a conflict.Videos of people sharing concerns that Canada is preparing for war amassed millions of views on platforms like TikTok.Trump’s remarks, as well as his now-on-pause efforts to impose tariffs on imports, have indeed strained relations with Washington’s neighbor to the north, but there’s no concrete evidence that war is on the horizon, retired General Barry McCaffrey and Major General Randy Manner told Newsweek.Read in full from Andrew Stanton on Newsweek.Ukrainian President Volodymy Zelensky says he “deeply values” President Trump’s determination to end the war.In a post on X, after his meeting with U.S. Vice President JD Vance at the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Friday, Zelensky said Ukraine was “ready to move as quickly as possible towards a real and guaranteed peace.”I had a good meeting with U.S. Vice President @JDVance. I am grateful to him and his entire team for the discussion, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Special Envoy General Keith Kellogg also taking part.Our teams will continue to work on the document. We addressed many… pic.twitter.com/zYc15vqIz8China has backed President Donald Trump’s call to scale back military expenditures, saying the United States, as the world’s top defense spender, should set the example.Newsweek reached out to the U.S. Department of Defense and the Russian Foreign Ministry by email with requests for comment.Trump on Thursday called for talks with the U.S.’s most powerful adversaries, China and Russia, to engage in talks on drawing down defense spending and their nuclear stockpiles—once “things settle down,” saying there was “no reason” for the U.S. to be spending nearly $1 trillion on defense as it is this year.It was an unexpected statement for a U.S. president, particularly a Republican one. The shift comes as China accelerates its military buildup, seen by experts as a response to U.S. capabilities, and after Russia’s 2022 abandonment of its last major nuclear treaty with Washington, New START, amid tensions over Putin’s war in Ukraine.When asked to respond to Trump’s comments during Friday’s regular press conference, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun pointed out that the U.S. and Russia account for over 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons.”As the countries with the largest nuclear arsenals, the United States and Russia should earnestly fulfill their special and priority responsibilities for nuclear disarmament, further reduce their nuclear arsenals by a substantial and substantial margin, and create the necessary conditions for other nuclear-weapon states to join the nuclear disarmament process,” the spokesperson added.Read in full from Micah McCartney on Newsweek.The United States sending troops to Ukraine in its fight against Russian invasion is an option that’s “on the table” if Russian President Vladimir Putin does not negotiate in good faith to arrive at a peace deal, Vice President JD Vance has warned.The vice president spoke to The Wall Street Journal about options, including sanctions, in bringing about an end to the full-scale invasion Russia launched in February 2022.Newsweek has contacted the Russian Ministry of Defense, via email, for comment.President Donald Trump, who promised several times to bring peace to the region during his campaign, said that he and Putin had agreed in a “lengthy and highly productive phone call” on Wednesday to open talks to end the war in Ukraine.Vance’s warning has struck a new tone for the administration, which has spoken out repeatedly against the amount of money and resources being sent to Ukraine.Vance threatened to use sanctions and military action against Russia if Putin did not agree to a deal that guaranteed Kyiv’s long-term independence.”There are economic tools of leverage, there are of course military tools of leverage,” he said.Read in full from Jordan King on Newsweek.Russian president Vladimir Putin has reportedly gained a new bargaining chip in negotiations regarding prisoner swaps with the U.S.Another American citizen has allegedly been arrested in Russia after he was accused of transporting one pound of marijuana, just hours after Moscow and Washington exchanged prisoners earlier this week, according to reports in Russia.The US citizen’s arrest was reported on Friday by the Russian Telegram channel Mash, which has connections to Russia’s security services.Newsweek reached out to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation for comment via email. Newsweek also reached out to the U.S. Department of State for comment via a form on their website outside of business hours.Read in full from Maya Mehrara on Newsweek.A drone armed with a warhead struck the protective outer shell of Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear plant early Friday, creating a hole in the structure and briefly igniting a fire in an attack that Kyiv blamed on Russia. The Kremlin has denied responsibility.According to the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), radiation levels remain normal, as the strike did not breach the plant’s inner containment shell.The IAEA, which has a team stationed at the site, did not assign blame but confirmed that its observers heard an explosion and were informed that a drone had hit the facility.Ukrainian President Volodymy Zelensky tells U.S. Vice President JD Vance that his country needs “security guarantees” for peace talks, as Donald Trump pushes for negotiations to end the war.Speaking in a joint appearance with Vance, after their meeting at the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Friday, Zelensky said they’d had “good conversations today,” which he said would likely be the first of many.He added that now the U.S. and Ukraine needed to “prepare the plan how to stop Putin and finish the war.”Vance agreed that he and Zelensky had a “number of fruitful conversations and a number of things to follow up and work on.””Fundamentally, the goal is as President (Donald) Trump outlined it: We want the war to come to a close. We want the killing to stop, but we want to achieve a durable, lasting peace, not the kind of peace that’s going to have eastern Europe in conflict just a couple years down the road,” he said.When asked how negotiations would progress if Zelensky is not ready to speak with Putin at the table, Vance said it was important “for us to get together and start to have the conversations that are going to be necessary to bring this thing to a close.”But he declined to go into details.”That’s all I’m going to say for now, because I want to preserve the optionality here for the negotiators and our respective teams to bring this thing to a responsible close,” Vance said.Hungary’s nationalist prime minister Viktor Orbán said that Donald Trump will reconnect Russia with Europe if the war in Ukraine ends.”The United States has initiated a change that puts the whole Western world’s system of arguments, value system, and way of thinking on a new track,” Orbán said on state radio.”This process is progressing much faster than many people thought. We call this the Trump tornado.”Ukrainian President Volodymy Zelensky said that he will be “very happy” to see the U.S. envoy to Ukraine and Russia, Gen. Keith Kellogg, in Ukraine “in the closest time.”Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has thanked the United States for its support following his meeting with Vice President JD Vance.”We are very thankful for American support,” Zelensky said after the meeting at the Munich Security Conference in Germany.”We had good conversations today, our first meeting, not last, I’m sure,” he added.He added that they needed to “prepare the plan how to stop Putin and finish the war.””Really, we want peace very much, but we need real security guarantees, and we’ll continue our meetings and our work,” he said.Ukrainian President Volodymy Zelensky said Friday that will only meet with Russian leader Vladimir Putin if a common plan has already been negotiated with Donald Trump.Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Zelensky said he believes the U.S. president is the key to ending the Ukraine war.He told reporters that Trump has even given him his cellphone number during the peace talks.Vice President JD Vance is sitting down with Ukrainian President Volodymy Zelensky at a key security summit taking place in Germany.Zelensky had urged the United States “not to make any decisions about Ukraine without Ukraine” ahead of the meeting with Vance at the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Friday.Their meeting had been postponed from this morning “as Ukraine finalizes a key partnership memorandum for the U.S. side,” according to the Kyiv Post.Elon Musk has said “Make Europe Great Again!” after JD Vance’s criticized European allies and immigration at the Munich Security Conference Friday.Billionaire Musk, who leads the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, posted a clip of Vance on his social network site X.During the clip, Vance is criticizing immigration into European countries, and called on them to “change course and take our shared civilization in a new direction.””Make Europe Great Again! MEGA, MEGA, MEGA,” Musk posted, alongside the video.Make Europe Great Again!MEGA, MEGA, MEGA pic.twitter.com/Mk5NJXxxeCVolodymyr Zelensky has warned that Ukraine’s army would have to double in size if denied membership to NATO.”If we do not have NATO, real NATO, we will make NATO in Ukraine,” Zelensky said Friday at the Munich Security Conference in Germany.”It means that we need to increase our soldiers, our army twice. We have 110 brigades. Russia has 220 brigades,” he added.Zelensky insists that NATO membership is the best way to secure Ukraine’s future in the war against Russia.He was speaking after U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth apparently ruled out Kyiv joining NATO earlier this week, claiming it was unrealistic.The Congressional reaction to Vice President JD Vance’s blistering attack on America’s European allies, during a speech at Munich Security Conference Friday, was deeply divided on partisan lines.Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw, of Texas, praised Vance’s “strong words on European domestic politics.””I’m not sure I disagree with anything he said,” Crenshaw said at a Politico side event at the conference.However, Democrat Congress members said they were “disappointed” and “embarrassed” by the speech, and said the U.S. should refrain from criticizing ally’s domestic politics.”Enormously disappointed by this speech,” Democratic Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, of Pennsylvania, said at the Politico event, adding it was “in no way, shape or form what I would have hoped for.”Democratic Rep. Jason Crow, of Colorado, said that alliances and partnerships “one of our core strengths” and that he was not in favor of “policing or criticizing each other’s domestic politics.””I was embarrassed by that speech,” he added.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday that he will only meet Russian leader Vladimir Putin in person after negotiating a common plan with U.S. President Donald Trump.Zelensky views Trump as crucial to ending the Russia-Ukraine conflict and revealed that the U.S. president provided him with his direct phone number ahead of Friday’s Munich Security Conference.This week, Trump disrupted years of unwavering U.S. support for Ukraine following a phone call with Putin, signaling a potential shift in American policy.Later, Zelensky is scheduled to meet with U.S. Vice President JD Vance to discuss the evolving situation.A driver plowed a car into a union demonstration in central Munich on Thursday, injuring more than two dozen people, including children, in what authorities believe was an attack.The suspect, a 24-year-old Afghan asylum-seeker, was arrested after police fired a shot at the vehicle.The incident was the latest in a string of violent incidents in Germany linked to immigrants in recent months, including a knife attack in Aschaffenburg three weeks ago that left a two-year-old boy and a man dead. In that incident the suspect was an Afghan whose asylum application had been rejected. Similar attacks occurred in Mannheim and Solingen last year, with suspects from Afghanistan and Syria, respectively. In December, a Saudi doctor was arrested for ramming his car into a crowd at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, killing five people.The demonstration was organized by the service workers’ union ver.di, with participants marching through the streets around 10:30 a.m. when the suspect’s vehicle overtook a police escort, accelerated, and struck the crowd from behind, police said.At least 28 people were injured, some seriously. A damaged Mini Cooper was left at the scene along with scattered debris, including shoes. Authorities arrested the suspect immediately after the crash. Bavaria’s Deputy Police Chief Christian Huber said the suspect was known to police for theft and drug offenses.The incident occurred on the eve of the Munich Security Conference. Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann stated that authorities do not believe the incident was connected to the conference.Read in full from Daniel Orton on Newsweek.Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has once again urged the United States “not to make any decisions about Ukraine without Ukraine.”I think what is very important is the meeting, not to make any decisions about Ukraine without Ukraine,” Zelensky said Friday at the Munich Security Conference in Germany.”We will never accept it, and I’m not just speaking about me,” he said.Zelensky was speaking ahead of expected talks with US. Vice President JD Vance later today.The Ukrainian leader added that it was “very important for me to pressure Putin.””Put all the sanctions, I think President Trump is ready to do that. He has all this power to do that. That is why I wanted very much to come to Washington, any day,” he said.China said it welcomes increased U.S.-Russia dialogue following President Donald Trump’s conversation with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on ending Moscow’s war in Ukraine.In a Truth Social post on Wednesday, Trump said he had a “highly productive” phone call with Putin and that they had agreed to start negotiations on ending the conflict that began nearly three years ago. Trump also said he spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, adding the conversation “went very well.”China, which has sought to present itself as a neutral party, has repeatedly called for a return to dialogue to bring the war to a close. Beijing has refused to refer to Moscow’s full-fledged invasion as such, however, and the U.S. and European Union have accused China of fueling Russia’s war machine with oil and natural gas purchases, political support, and a steady stream of dual-use military exports.Asked to comment on the Trump-Putin phone call, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said: “China is glad to see enhanced communication and dialogue between Russia and the U.S. on a number of international issues.””Dialogue and negotiation is the only viable way out of the crisis,” Guo said, reiterating that Beijing has called for peace talks since the beginning.”China supports all efforts conducive to the peaceful settlement of the crisis, and will maintain communication with relevant parties and play a constructive role in promoting the political settlement of the crisis,” the spokesperson added.Read in full from Micah McCartney on Newsweek.A German company will manufacture 6,000 artificial intelligence-powered drones for Ukraine.Helsing, a Munich-based technology firm, will produce the HX-2 attack drones for Kyiv, the order making the company one of the “largest strike drone manufacturers globally,” according to the press release on its website.Newsweek reached out to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and Germany’s Federal Ministry of Defense for comment via email.Read in full from Maya Mehrara on Newsweek.Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson has said the Trump administration’s approach to Ukraine peace talks shows “realism.”Maria Zakharova was speaking after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ruled out NATO membership for Ukraine.”It seems to me that this is more a manifestation of realism,” Zakharova said at a Friday news conference in Moscow.Zakharova also referred to Trump’s comments blaming Joe Biden for the war after he suggested that Kyiv could one day join NATO.”(Trump) said that, in his opinion, the whole story began after the team of Biden began to speculate on the topic of NATO, the inclusion of Ukraine in NATO, and so on,” Zakharova said.”In my opinion, this speaks of realism,” she said.U.S. Vice President JD Vance launched a blistering attack on European laws Friday, claiming that free speech was “in retreat” across the continent in his address to the Munich Security Conference.”The threat that I worry most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, not China, it’s not any other external actor,” he said. “What I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values.”Vance highlighted a decision by Romania’s constitutional court to cancel the Romanian presidential race over suspected Russian interference, and one by the city of Brussels to leave Elon Musk’s platform X, formerly Twitter, over “hate speech.”Read in full from Hannah Parry and Daniel Orton on Newsweek.JD Vance told European leaders in Munich on Friday that there is “nothing more urgent than mass migration.”The U.S. vice president said that one in five people living in Germany had moved there from abroad, a similar figure to the U.S.He blamed migration for yesterday’s horror attack in Munich where a man plowed his car into a group of demonstrators, injuring at least 36.The suspect is a 24-year-old asylum-seeker from Afghanistan who was arrested at the scene.”It’s a terrible story but it’s one we’ve heard too many times.”How many times must we suffer these appalling setbacks before we change course and take our shared civilization in a new direction?”No voter on this continent went to the ballot box to open the floodgates to millions of unvetted immigrants.”But you know what they did for? In England they voted for Brexit… and more and more, they are voting for political leaders who promise to put an end to out of control migration.Vice President JD Vance accused European leaders of “hiding behind ugly, Soviet-era words like misinformation and disinformation” to shut down people with different viewpoints or who voted a different way.In the speech at the Munich Security Conference on Friday, he argued against Romania’s decision to shut down its presidential election over Russian interference, saying “speaking up and expressing opinions is not election interference.”He compared the Russian interference to Elon Musk, the world’s richest billionaire who has been hugely influential in the Trump administration and who has joined President Trump for press conferences in the White House, and now-22-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg.”If American democracy can survive 10 years of Greta Thunberg scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk,” he added.Thunberg was 12 years old ten years ago.The vice president said that “shutting down” unorthodox viewpoints “is the most surefire way to destroy democracy.”JD Vance tells the Munich Security Conference that some of the loudest voices for censorship had actually come from the U.S., under the Biden administration, but “there’s a new sheriff in town.””Just as the Biden administration seemed desperate to silence people for speaking their minds… the Trump administration will do precisely the opposite.”In Washington, there’s a new sheriff in town and under Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views but we will fight to defend your right to offer it in the public square of agree or disagree.”JD Vance launched a blistering attack on European laws, claiming that free speech was “in retreat” across the continent.The U.S. vice president highlighted the arrest of a man in the U.K. who breached the buffer laws surrounding abortion centers, created to protect women from anti-abortion protesters, by praying nearby.”Most concerning I look to our very dear friends in the United Kingdom where the back slides away from.. rights has placed the basic liberties of religious Britons in particular, in the cross hairs,” Vance said.He highlighted a decision by the city of Brussels to leave Elon Musk’s platform X over “hate speech.”Also the Constitutional Court’s cancelation of the Romanian presidential race, lef by far right Călin Georgescu, over suspected Russian interference.”When I look at Europe today, it’s not clear what happened to some of the Cold War’s winners,” Vance said.JD Vance criticized Europe’s commitment to democracy as he said the U.S. was most worried about the “threat from within” the continent.”The threat that I worry most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, not China, it’s not any other external actor. What I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values,” Vance said Friday.Vance highlighted a decision by Romania’s constitutional court to cancel the Romanian presidential race over suspected Russian interference as proof.Von der Leyen concludes her speech by saying that the bloc will “speed up” its accession process to admit Ukraine to the EU.”Now is the time to move mountains,” she says, adding that there’s “a lot that this Europe can do.”Speaking during a question and answer session following the speech, von der Leyen also acknowledged that European countries urgently needed to pull up defense spending, something the U.S. has been forcefully pushing.Von der Leyen says the European Union is a “period of crisis” and that she will propose activating “the escape clause for defense investments.”The EU clause for defense spending refers to a mechanism within the bloc’s fiscal rules that allows member states to temporarily deviate from strict budgetary requirements when increasing defense expenditures in response to security threats.”Of course, it must be done in a controlled and conditional way,” she says.German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has accused the Trump administration of ignoring established rules and “established partnerships and trust.”In a speech at the conference, Steinmeier said: “The new American administration has a different worldview than we do. One that takes no account of established rules, of established partnerships and trust.”He added that “rulelessness must not become the model for a new order of the world.”It is up to Russian President Vladimir Putin “to demonstrate his interest is not to prolong this war,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen says in her speech at the Munich Security Conference.German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier told the Munich Security Conference that Germany needed to increase its defense spending, “not to wage war, but to prevent war.”Steinmeier said that the two percent spending target for military defense, set by NATO in 2024, is far below the figure needed.”One decade later, we will have to spend significantly more than was agreed at the time. There is no way around it, and every new federal government will have to create the necessary financial leeway for this,” he said.Steinmeier is speaking after Trump urged NATO members to increase their spending, claiming that they had relied on the U.S. for far too long.Ukraine has “never been promised” NATO membership as part of a peace deal, the organization’s Secretary General told reporters at the Munich Security Conference Friday, where the future of Ukraine is set to dominate proceedings.”What we are talking about here is what is the best possible way to make sure a peace deal is lasting, that a peace deal is enduring and there are many ways to do that,” Mark Rutte said, when asked if NATO was committed to Ukraine joining the alliance. “But there has never been said before…that when a peace deal would be done on Ukraine, that in that peace deal it should be NATO. Full stop. That’s not the case.””I know that many think that part of a peace deal should be NATO but it has never been promised to Ukraine that it would be part of the outcome,” he continued.On Wednesday, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suggested that Ukraine’s membership of NATO was “unrealistic,” though he walked those comments back the following day, saying “everything was on the table” in peace negotiations with Russia.
Ellie Cook, Newsweek Security & Defense Reporter, from Munich:Around the corner from where global leaders are meeting in Munich, dozens of people are blasting music and waving Iranian flags to bring the attention of senior world figures to the government in Tehran, and, crucially, the opposition to it.Sahar, one of the demonstration’s organizers, told Newsweek that they had timed their presence because they knew Tehran would be on the agenda at the Munich Security Conference, not least with concerns deepening over Iran’s nuclear program.The demonstration was organized by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a political organization of opposition groups based across Europe that opposes the regime in Tehran.”Change is very close in Iran,” Sahar said.With high-profile U.S. figures like Vice President JD Vance in attendance, Sahar said she hoped political heavyweights would “recognize the right of resistance of the people of Iran.”Sahin Gobadi, a member of the foreign affairs committee of the National Council, said the “missing link” in Western policy towards for many years had been a lack of attention paid to internal opposition to the regime.”At the end of the day, the change will come from inside the country,” he told Newsweek.Speaking on state radio, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that the Trump administration will work to reintegrate Russia into Western economies and energy networks if the war in Ukraine comes to an end.”If the American president makes peace, if an agreement is made, I think Russia will be reintegrated into the world economy, reintegrated into the European security system, and even European energy,” said Orbán, a close ally of both Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.”This will give the Hungarian economy a huge boost. It’s a big opportunity. We gain a lot in peace,” he added.U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made a “rookie mistake” earlier this week when he said it was “unrealistic” to expect Ukraine to return to its pre-2014 borders, Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker said at the Munich Security Conference.”Hegseth is going to be a great defense secretary, although he wasn’t my choice for the job,” the Mississippi Republican told Politico, “But he made a rookie mistake in Brussels and he’s walked back some of what he said but not that line.”On Thursday, Trump’s defense secretary said “everything is on the table” with regards to negotiations with Russia, pulling back on some comments he made Wednesday about how to achieve peace in Ukraine, including the country not joining NATO.”I prefer we didn’t give away negotiating positions before we actually get started talking about the end of the Russia-Ukraine war,” Wicker said.Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova says there will be no representatives of the ministry at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, according to Russian news agency TASS.Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied Ukrainian claims that Russia hit the outer protective shell of the Chernobyl nuclear plant in a drone strike.”There is no talk about striking on nuclear infrastructure, nuclear energy facilities, any such claim isn’t true, our military doesn’t do that,” Peskov said in a conference call with reporters, according to the Associated Press.The Kremlin said it would seek clarification from U.S. Vice President JD Vance after he said sending U.S. troops into Ukraine remained “on the table” if Moscow won’t agree to a peace deal.”There are economic tools of leverage, there are of course military tools of leverage,” Vance said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Thursday.”These are new elements of the position, we have not heard such formulations before, they have not been voiced,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, according to Russian news channel RBC. “We hope that we will receive some additional clarifications.”Vance met with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte Friday morning, reiterating the administration’s call for the alliance’s members to spend more on defense.Currently, 23 of NATO’s 32 member nations are hitting a target of spending 2 percent of their nation’s GDP on defense.”NATO is a very important military alliance, of course, that we’re the most significant part of,” Vance said. “But we want to make sure that NATO is actually built for the future, and we think a big part of that is ensuring that NATO does a little bit more burden sharing in Europe, so the United States can focus on some of our challenges in East Asia.”Rutte agreed: “We have to grow up in that sense and spend much more.”A reported Russian drone has struck the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine, just hours before the Munich Security Conference kicks off.The drone strike on the facility in northern Ukraine demonstrated that the conflict was still in full swing despite speculation about an imminent ceasefire agreement following Donald Trump’s talks with Putin and Zelensky.Read more from Maya Mehrara on NewsweekU.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was supposed to be joining a meeting between U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday, but he was delayed after a cracked windshield forced his plane to return to Joint Base Andrews, spokesperson Tammy Bruce told Newsweek.”The Secretary intends to continue his travel to Germany and the Middle East on a separate air craft,” Bruce said, though it was unclear if Rubio would make it to Munich in time for the meeting.To read how Newsweek uses AI as a newsroom tool, Click here.Hannah Parry is a Newsweek Live Blog Editor based in New York. Her focus is reporting on U.S. politics and society. She has covered politics, tech and crime extensively.Hannah joined Newsweek in 2024 and previously worked as an assistant editor at The U.S. Sun and as a senior reporter and assistant news editor at The Daily Mail. She is a graduate of the University of Nottingham. You can get in touch with Hannah by emailing h.parry@newsweek.com. Languages: English.Daniel Orton is an editor on the live news team at Newsweek, based in London, U.K. He was previously a video news editor at the company between 2017 and 2019, before spending several years as a senior video journalist on the social news team at The Wall Street Journal, where he primarily produced short-form and breaking-news videos for the Journal’s X (Twitter) page, with a focus on business, finance and markets. He also produced longer videos for other platforms on a wide range of subjects, from the U.K. royal family’s finances to the cost of tackling climate change. He has also worked for The London Evening Standard, Fox News and Bauer Media.Ellie Cook is a Newsweek security and defense reporter based in London, U.K. Her work focuses largely on the Russia-Ukraine war, the U.S. military, weapons systems and emerging technology. She joined Newsweek in January 2023, having previously worked as a reporter at the Daily Express, and is a graduate of International Journalism at City, University of London. Languages: English, Spanish.You can reach Ellie via email at e.cook@newsweek.com. Hannah Parry is a Newsweek Live Blog Editor based in New York. Her focus is reporting on U.S. politics and society. She has covered politics, tech and crime extensively.Hannah joined Newsweek in 2024 and previously worked as an assistant editor at The U.S. Sun and as a senior reporter and assistant news editor at The Daily Mail. She is a graduate of the University of Nottingham. You can get in touch with Hannah by emailing h.parry@newsweek.com. Languages: English.Hannah Parry is a Newsweek Live Blog Editor based in New York. Her focus is reporting on U.S. politics and …
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