Ukraine's Zelenskyy lands in Berlin for talks with Merz on ending the war

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy landed in Berlin on Wednesday for talks with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, his office said, part of a diplomatic drive to end the war in Ukraine, Europe's deadliest since World War Two.

Merz will receive Zelenskyy with military honours at the federal chancellery at noon (1000 GMT) for a visit focused on German support for Ukraine as well as efforts to achieve a ceasefire, a government spokesperson said in a statement.

Ukrainian and Russian officials met this month for their first face-to-face negotiations since Russia's full-scale invasion of its former Soviet neighbour in 2022, under pressure from US President Donald Trump to end the war.

The talks failed however to produce a ceasefire agreement and Russia unleashed three nights of massive aerial attacks on Ukraine over the weekend. Russia has gathered 50,000 troops near Ukraine's northern Sumy region, Zelenskyy told reporters.

With Trump signalling wavering support for Ukraine in recent months, Germany could play an increasingly important role as Ukraine's biggest military and financial backer after the United States.

Merz, a conservative who took office this month, has vowed to take more of a leadership role in ensuring support for Ukraine than his Social Democrat predecessor Olaf Scholz.

He visited Ukraine with other European leaders within days of becoming chancellor and on Monday endorsed Ukraine's right to launch long-range missile strikes into Russian territory - in contrast with Scholz's cautious rhetoric on the issue.

Zelenskyy said on Tuesday he was grateful to Merz for coming to Kyiv but there were "things that we could not discuss because we did not have a long one-on-one. And we agreed that the time will come when I will come to Berlin and we will talk about it".

Washington and Kyiv are waiting for Russia's draft of a memorandum on a peace accord and Merz has dampened hopes for a quick resolution to the war. "Putin and Russia clearly have at the moment no interest in a ceasefire, or a peace deal," he said on Tuesday. "This means, as a consequence, that Ukraine must continue to defend itself — and that we must actually intensify our efforts to enable Ukraine to do so."

Germany is not expected, however, to announce new weapons deliveries to Ukraine given that the new government has said it would no longer publicly detail what arms it is sending Ukraine, preferring a stance of "strategic ambiguity".

Russia has accused Ukraine significantly increasing drone and missile attacks on Russian territory over the past week using Western-supplied munitions.