US envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner will meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders in Berlin this weekend, a US official briefed on the matter said.
Mr Witkoff will also meet with his counterparts from France, Britain and Germany tomorrow and Monday, the official added.
The choice to send Mr Witkoff, who has led negotiations with Ukraine and Russia regarding a US peace proposal, highlights Washington's growing urgency to bridge remaining gaps with Kyiv over the plan's terms.
French President Emmanuel Macron, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz were also expected to attend, the Wall Street Journal reported.
On Thursday, the White House said Mr Trump would only send an official to the meeting if he felt there was enough progress to be made in peace talks.
Mr Trump has been stepping up pressure on Kyiv to reach an agreement since revealing a peace plan last month that has been accused of echoing Moscow's key demands, including Ukraine ceding crucial territory.
The 28-point proposal has prompted a flurry of diplomacy between the US and Ukraine's European allies, with Kyiv officials recently saying they had sent Washington an updated plan.
Germany's government said Berlin will host the leaders, including the heads of the European Union and NATO, on Monday after Mr Zelensky attends a German-Ukrainian business forum with Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
The idea of a speedy accession by Ukraine into the European Union - a move opposed by Russia - is included in the latest version of a US-led plan to end the war.
Europeans and Ukrainians are also asking the United States to provide them with "security guarantees" before Ukraine negotiates any territorial concessions, the French presidency said yesterday.
Concrete security guarantees for Ukraine are a "prerequisite" for any peace agreement and must be set out in a legally binding document, Ukraine's ambassador to NATO Alyona Getmanchuk said on Thursday.
Under the latest US plan, Ukraine would join the EU as early as January 2027, a senior official familiar with the matter said on condition of anonymity.
The complicated EU accession process usually takes years and requires a unanimous vote from all 27 members of the bloc and some countries, most notably Hungary, have consistently voiced opposition to Ukraine joining.
Mr Trump can use "various levers of influence" to convince leaders opposed to Ukraine's membership to change their stance, Mr Zelensky told journalists on Thursday.
Ukraine has long striven for EU membership but has struggled to eradicate endemic corruption - a core prerequisite for joining the bloc.
Full details of the plan have not been released.
Mr Zelensky will discuss "the status of peace negotiations" with "numerous European heads of state and government, as well as the leaders of the EU and NATO", Germany said.
Russia indicated yesterday that it was suspicious about the efforts to amend the US plan, for which it has signaled support.
"We have an impression that this version ... will be worsened," Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov told the Kommersant business daily.
"It'll be a long process," he added, saying that Moscow had not seen an updated version since discussions between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US envoys, Mr Witkoff and Jared Kushner, in Moscow last week.
The Ukrainian president said yesterday that Washington wants only Ukraine, not Russia, to withdraw its troops from parts of the eastern Donetsk region, where a demilitarised "free economic zone" would be installed as a buffer between the two armies.
An adviser to French President Emmanuel Macron said Ukraine was "not considering" a deal on the territories or a demilitarised zone.
Russia, which has the numerical advantage in manpower and weapons, has been grinding forward on the battlefield for months, notching up its quickest advance for a year in November.
Russia strikes Ukraine facilities with hypersonic missiles
Russia said it hit Ukrainian industrial and energy facilities overnight with hypersonic missiles, in what it called a retaliation attack for Ukrainian strikes on "civilian targets" in Russia.
Moscow's defence ministry said it carried out a "massive strike" on Ukraine's army and energy facilities using weapons including Kinzhal hypersonic missiles as a "response to Ukraine's terrorist attacks on civilian targets in Russia".
Ukraine's southern port city of Odesa and the surrounding region suffered major blackouts after the overnight Russian attack.
Mr Zelensky said Russia had attacked Ukraine with over 450 drones and 30 missiles.
Ukraine's power grid operator said a "significant number" of households were without power in the southern regions of Odesa and Mykolaiv, and that the Ukrainian-controlled part of the frontline Kherson region was totally without power.
