Zelensky meets Vance as Ukraine says Russia hit Chernobyl nuclear plant

Our live coverage has ended. Read more on Vance’s speech here or read through the posts below.

NATO’s Secretary General Mark Rutte called US Vice President JD Vance’s controversial speech on Friday “philosophical,” adding that Vance “stressed the unity of the US and Europe… and alluded to our common values of free speech, of democracy.”

Vance accused European leaders of suppressing free speech and refusing to work with hard-right parties in government in the speech, which Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius called “unacceptable.”

As to NATO spending, Rutte told CNN he understands the United States’ “irritation” over its higher spending on defense than other NATO members, saying Europe has to “grow up” and “take care” of its own responsibility.

This comes after US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth this week cemented the Trump administration’s demand for NATO members to spend 5% of their GDP on defense.

Rutte went on to say that senior American officials have expressed to him the need to end the war in Ukraine as soon as possible.

US Vice President JD Vance, at a bilateral meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said he wants to “preserve the optionality” for those working to negotiate an end to the war, and said the goal is for a “durable, lasting peace.”

“We had a number of fruitful conversations and a number of things to follow up and work on,” Vance told reporters sitting directly across from Zelensky in Germany.

“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.

Asked how this will move forward if Ukraine is not ready to speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the table, Vance was reluctant to speak to the parameters of negotiations.

“It’s 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. 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.

Some background: Vance’s remarks come amid an air of uncertainty and anxiety which has enveloped Europe in the past week after Trump suggested Ukraine “may be Russian someday,” shortly before announcing that peace negotiations would begin immediately after holding a phone call with Putin.

Trump’s announcement sparked fears that a “dirty deal” may be struck with Putin to end the war on terms favorable to Moscow without Kyiv’s involvement.

But Vance warned earlier on Thursday the US could hit Russia with economic and military “tools of leverage” if Moscow doesn’t negotiate a peace deal in good faith.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the United States for its support following a Friday meeting with US Vice President JD Vance and urged for more dialogue to end the war in Ukraine.

“We are very thankful for American support,” Zelensky said after the highly anticipated meeting at the Munich Security Conference in Germany. “We had good conversations today, our first meeting, not last, I’m sure,” he added.

Zelensky added that he will be “very happy” to see the US’ envoy to Ukraine and Russia, Gen. Keith Kellogg, in Ukraine “in the closest time.”

Kirill Dmitriev attends a session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, in June 2021.

The Kremlin is assembling a high-level negotiating team to engage in direct talks with the United States to end the war in Ukraine, sources with knowledge of the issue have told CNN.

Members of the Kremlin team have not been publicly announced, but CNN has learned it will include top-level political, intelligence and economic figures, including the Russian official who played a key behind-the-scenes role in a recent US prisoner release deal.

Recently, Dmitriev worked closely with US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff – and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia – to secure the release from Russia of American teacher Marc Fogel, sources familiar with the deal told CNN.

Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sanctioned sovereign wealth fund, has been an outspoken Trump supporter from within Russia’s political elite, saying his US presidential election victory “shows that ordinary Americans are tired of the unprecedented lies, incompetence, and malice of the Biden administration.” He added that Trump’s win “opens up new opportunities for resetting relations between Russia and the United States.”

The Kremlin’s inclusion of Dmitriev, indicates that a key focus of Russia’s negotiating strategy in likely to be on sanctions reduction, as well as on repairing battered economic ties with the West.

Read the rest of the story here.

Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Goncharenko speaks during the Black Sea Security Forum, in Odesa, in June 2024.

European officials criticized Vance’s speech on Friday, where he came out swinging against European allies for suppressing free speech, losing control of immigration, and refusing to work with hard-right parties in government.

Vance began his speech at the Munich Security Conference in Germany saying the Trump administration believes it can strike a “reasonable settlement between Russia and Ukraine,” but said the threat he worries most about in Europe is the “threat from within.”

Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Goncharenko called Vance’s speech “the total humiliation of all European leaders.”

“I think this was one of the epoch-making speeches at the Munich conference,” Goncharenko posted on Telegram Friday, noting that Vance “said nothing about the war and Ukraine.”

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius also called Vance’s diatribe against European leaders “unacceptable.”

“I strongly oppose the impression that Vice President Vance has created that minorities are being suppressed or silenced in our democracy,” Pistorius added.

Pistorius, who has been campaigning for Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) ahead of the country’s federal election on February 23, said German democracy allows for a plurality of views, meaning the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) can campaign “just like any other party.”

Senator Lindsey Graham and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speak during the Munich Security Conference on Friday.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said Ukraine should be armed “to the teeth” to deter Russian President Vladimir Putin, calling Ukraine the “ally I’ve been waiting for all my life.”

“I think he’s [US President Donald Trump] going to find a way to end this war, in a fashion that Putin would be a fool to do it again,” Graham said during a panel discussion on Friday at the Munich Security Conference in Germany.

“How do you deter Putin? You arm this guy to the teeth,” Graham said, pointing at Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“Let’s arm this guy, let’s do the minerals agreement so you have American business interests. Putin doesn’t understand what is going on. If we sign this minerals agreement then Putin is screwed, because Trump will defend the deal,” he said.

Graham called Ukraine the “ally I’ve been waiting for all my life.”

“You’ve taken our weapons, and you’ve kicked their ass, and I’m very proud to have you as our ally,” he said.

Ukrainian servicemen fire a D-30 howitzer towards Russian troops at a position in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on January 11.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his country’s army will need to double in size if NATO denies it membership to the alliance.

Zelensky said earlier that even though the Trump administration is not ready to talk about his country’s future membership of NATO, it remains the best security guarantee for Ukraine.

This comes after US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth apparently ruled out Kyiv joining the military alliance on Wednesday, saying that it was unrealistic.

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky attends the Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany, on Friday.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has urged the United States “not to make any decisions about Ukraine without Ukraine,” ahead of expected talks with US Vice President JD Vance.

“We will never accept it, and I’m not just speaking about me,” he said.

“It is very important for me to pressure (Russian President Vladimir) 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.”

US Vice President JD Vance has compared current European leaders with autocrats who oversaw repressive regimes across the continent during the Cold War.

Vance drew parallels between what he cast as repressive crackdowns on free speech today with the autocracies of the 20th century.

“Consider the side in that fight that censored dissidents, that closed churches, that canceled elections. Were they the good guys? Certainly not. And thank God, they lost the Cold War. They lost because they neither valued nor respected all of the extraordinary blessings of liberty,” he said.

“You can’t force people what to think, what to feel or what to believe… Unfortunately, when I look at Europe today, it’s sometimes not so clear what happened to some of the Cold War’s winners.”

U.S. Vice President JD Vance speaks at the 61st Munich Security Conference on Friday.

US Vice President JD Vance has delivered a long diatribe against European leaders for allegedly cracking down on free speech and “running in fear” of their own voters.

In the speech at the Munich Security Conference on Friday, which was ostensibly addressing European security concerns, Vance listed a string of what he cast as an overly repressive European responses to unorthodox political views.

He slammed the United Kingdom for arresting a citizen for protesting near an abortion clinic, and Sweden for convicting an anti-Islam campaign who publicly burned Korans, along with a string of other incidents.

Vance criticized European leaders that he said “threatened and bullied social media companies to censor so-called misinformation,” citing the example of the Covid-19 lab leak theory.

The vice president said that “shutting down” unorthodox viewpoints “is the most surefire way to destroy democracy.”

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) has said it is classifying Russia’s reported overnight drone strike on the former Chernobyl nuclear power plant as a war crime.

The SBU said its investigators have started criminal proceedings into the impact that damaged the concrete shell of the plant’s fourth power unit. Despite the damage, Ukrainian officials have said radiation levels remain normal.

Moscow earlier denied involvement in the incident, but the SBU said it had discovered the wreckage of a type of Shahed drone, which Russia has used extensively in airstrikes on Ukraine.

Ukraine’s Prosecutor’s Office said it has launched an investigation.

Under international humanitarian law, nuclear power plants – which are civilian objects – are protected against attacks.

US President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House on February 3.

Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson has said the Trump administration’s approach to peace talks over Ukraine shows “realism,” after US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said NATO membership for Ukraine was not a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement.

Zakharova referred to remarks by US President Donald Trump, who has said that his predecessor Joe Biden was responsible for Russia’s war in Ukraine, and for suggesting 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.

Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine without provocation in February 2022, when NATO membership was a distant prospect. NATO has an “open door policy,” meaning any country that meets the necessary criteria can apply to join the alliance if they choose to – as Finland and Sweden did in 2023, fearing Russian aggression.

Speaking earlier in Warsaw, Poland, Hegseth said his job has been “to introduce realism to the conversation” by telling Ukrainian and European officials that “the reality is Ukraine membership in NATO as part of a negotiated settlement (is) unlikely.”

United States Vice-President JD Vance addresses the audience during the Munich Security Conference at the Bayerischer Hof Hotel in Munich, Germany, on Friday.

US Vice President JD Vance says the greatest threat Europe faces is “from within,” in his opening remarks at the Munich Security Conference in Germany.

He cited a decision by Romania’s constitutional court to annul the country’s presidential election last year, amid allegations of Russian interference, as evidence of Europe’s backsliding.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky attends a press conference in Munich, Germany, on Friday.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that Russia is preparing to attack a NATO country next year, citing Ukrainian intelligence, and said Moscow will renew its offensive on Ukraine if Kyiv does not receive sufficient security guarantees.

Speaking Friday on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in Germany, Zelensky said Russian President Vladimir Putin could launch an attack on a member of NATO as soon as 2026.

Zelensky has long claimed that Putin “will not stop” at Ukraine, although his remarks Friday gave a more specific timeline than before, and would be sooner than other European estimates.

Last year, Denmark’s defense minister said, “it cannot be ruled out that within a three- to five-year period, Russia will test Article 5 and NATO’s solidarity.”

Zelensky also said Friday that if Ukraine does not receive security guarantees in a negotiated peace, this would be “very profitable” for Russia.

He said it is insufficient simply to tell Putin to stop. “That’s not enough. That’s why how to stop it is security guarantees for us,” the Ukrainian president added.

Keith Kellogg, Trump's special envoy for Russia and Ukraine, looks on during a bilateral meeting at the Commerzbank in Munich, Germany, on Friday.

A top aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met Friday with Keith Kellogg, the US special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in Germany.

Andriy Yermak, Zelensky’s chief of staff, said his conversation with Kellogg centered on “joint efforts to achieve a just and lasting peace.”

Kellogg’s meeting with senior Ukrainian officials comes as Kyiv fears being sidelined in conversations about the future of Ukraine, after US President Donald Trump held a long call with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin this week before calling Zelensky. Trump also did not say whether he viewed Ukraine as an “equal partner” in peace talks.

Yermak stressed it is “our common duty to make sure that the aggressor pays a real price for everything it has done.”

Later Friday, Zelensky is set to meet with US Vice President JD Vance in Munich.

The GOP Senate Armed Services chairman criticized Pete Hegseth on Friday for making a “rookie mistake” after the new defense secretary offered shifting positions related to US posture toward the war in Ukraine this week.

In Brussels on Wednesday, Hegseth said Kyiv joining NATO is unrealistic and that a return to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders, before Russia invaded Crimea and eastern Ukraine, “is an unrealistic objective.” A day later, Hegseth hedged on those comments, saying “everything is on the table” in negotiations between the two countries.

Wicker said he was “surprised” by the defense secretary’s original comments but “heartened” by the change of course.

The structure of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant on Friday.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha has held an “urgent meeting” with Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), following Russia’s reported overnight drone strike on the former nuclear power plant in Chernobyl.

Sybiha said he met with Grossi in Germany, where world leaders – including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and US Vice President JD Vance – are meeting for the annual Munich Security Conference.

Earlier, Zelensky accused Moscow of targeting the concrete shell of the former plant. The Kremlin has denied responsibility.

Sybiha said he and Grossi also discussed Russia’s continued occupation of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP).

Russian troops took the ZNPP in March 2022, in the early weeks of Moscow’s full-scale invasion. The plant’s Ukrainian staff were initially forced to work at gunpoint, according to Ukrainian officials.

Grossi said in summer 2022 that “every principle of nuclear safety” had been “violated” at the ZNPP. He managed to secure his IAEA staff a visit in August of that year, while it remained under Russian control. By mid-2023, all reactors at the plant had been put into a “cold shutdown” status, limiting the chance of a major nuclear event.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that even though the Trump administration is not ready to talk about his country’s future membership of NATO, it remains the best security guarantee for Ukraine.

Talking with journalists ahead of his meeting later Friday with US Vice President JD Vance at the Munich Security Conference, Zelensky acknowledged that “today’s America and President Trump are not ready to talk about (Ukrainian membership of) NATO. They are openly saying that.”

But Zelensky emphasized that Ukraine still wanted to join the alliance “because of the security guarantees.”

Zelensky added: “If we are not in NATO, and I am openly talking about this, then Ukraine should build with Europe.” That would involve “having the appropriate NATO weapons and the appropriate number of our Ukrainian military.”

The Ukrainian president estimated that his country would need an army of 1.5 million people. “Today, our army, the number of combat brigades is about two times less than the 1.5 million we need.”

He estimated the current budget for the Ukrainian military at $40 billion, an amount that would have to increase by 50%. “Where is this going to come from?” he asked.

As for a foreign force that would guarantee a ceasefire, Zelensky said: “If we are really talking about a serious contingent, we (must) understand how many and where it should be.”

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks during a news conference in Warsaw, Poland, on Friday.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said Ukraine and its allies have successfully prevented Russian President Vladimir Putin from achieving the primary goal of his full-scale invasion – capturing the whole of Ukraine.

Asked whether Putin would be “emboldened” by a negotiated settlement that awards him large swaths of Ukrainian territory, Hegseth said the Russian leader is “going to declare victory no matter what,” but that Putin had fallen far short of his initial military objectives.

Whether or not Putin is “emboldened” by a negotiated settlement depends on NATO’s response, Hegseth said.

“If NATO’s response to the situation is to truly increase capabilities, truly increase inputs and spending to think more like Poland, to think more like the Baltics, who are closer to the threat… then I don’t think… Putin will be emboldened by this outcome,” he said.

“It’ll be a recognition that the collective ability of the West to deter him was something that actually happened,” he added.