ANKARA/KYIV, Nov 19 (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy held talks with Turkey’s president on Wednesday and was due to meet U.S. Army officials in Kyiv on Thursday, as word emerged that Washington was discussing possible peace conditions with Russia.

A senior Ukrainian official told Reuters that Kyiv had received “signals” about a set of U.S. proposals to end the war that Washington has discussed with Russia. Ukraine has had no role in preparing the proposals, the source said.

Sign up here.

Signs of a renewed U.S.-led push to end the war triggered the biggest jump in Ukraine’s government bond prices in months on Wednesday.

Efforts to revive peace negotiations appear to be gaining momentum although Moscow has shown no sign of changing its terms for ending the war.

UKRAINE’S TOP PRIORITY IS ENDING WAR

Zelenskiy has remained focused on the war effort and said on Tuesday he was preparing to “reinvigorate negotiations” and discuss with Erdogan how to bring a “just peace” to Ukraine.

“Doing everything possible to bring the end of the war closer is Ukraine’s top priority,” he said on Tuesday.

Russian forces control about 19% of Ukrainian territory and are grinding forwards, while carrying out frequent attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure as winter approaches.

Turkey, a NATO member that has remained close to both sides, hosted an initial round of peace talks in the early weeks of the war in 2022, the only such talks until this year when U.S. President Donald Trump launched a new bid to end the fighting.

The Kremlin said Russian representatives would not be involved in the talks but that President Vladimir Putin was open to conversations with the United States and Turkey about the results of the discussions.

Asked about the report, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday: “So far there are no innovations on this that can be reported to you.”

PUTIN’S CONDITIONS

Putin has long demanded Kyiv renounce plans to join the U.S.-led NATO military alliance and withdraw its troops from four provinces Moscow claims as part of Russia. Moscow has given no indication that it has dropped any of those demands and Ukraine says it will not accept them.

A U.S. delegation led by Army Secretary Dan Driscoll is in Kyiv on a “fact-finding mission”, the U.S. embassy in Kyiv said. Army Chief of Staff General Randy George is also in the delegation and he and Driscoll will meet Zelenskiy on Thursday, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters.

A Turkish source said U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff could also visit Turkey, but there was no announcement of such a visit from U.S. officials. Another source, at the Turkish Foreign Ministry, said Turkish officials would meet only Zelenskiy, and Witkoff was not expected to be part of the Ankara meetings.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

President Donald Trump started his campaign for Europe in general and Germany in particular to spend more of their budgets on defense during his first term, and it’s starting to pay off in the economic engine of Europe, the Federal Republic of Germany.

Germany’s coalition government — Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union and the Social Democrats — has agreed to a new system of incentives for voluntary military service after a heated debate last week to address the growing Russia threat to the European continent.

Incentives to generate recruitment involve free access to driving licenses. The cost of driving licenses can reach several thousand dollars. The second incentive is an increase in the existing pre-tax salary at the starting level, to around $3,000 a month.

US BRISTLES AT GERMANY’S DEFENSE BUDGET PLANS AFTER IT FALLS SHORT

German conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz declared at the start of his tenure that Germany’s armed forces would be transformed into “Europe’s strongest conventional army,” Jens Spahn, the parliamentary leader of Merz’s CDU party, told reporters on Thursday. “We want to win over as many young people as possible for the service for the fatherland.”

Spahn added that if the voluntary model does not secure sufficient military soldiers and personnel, “we’ll need to make it obligatory” Spahn noted, however, that the move toward compulsory conscription would mean a new law would need to be passed.

David Wurmser, who worked for the U.S. Navy Reserve as an intelligence officer, as a lieutenant commander and was a former senior advisor for nonproliferation and Middle East strategy for Vice President Dick Cheney, told Fox News Digital that “Europe is finally beginning to contemplate defense and a more serious way.”

“While it has never been its official policy, over the last few decades, Europeans took for granted the American umbrella and the inconceivability of war to both largely minimize any defense burden they share, as well as placed themselves as some sort of moral conscience lording over the world that ranged into pacifism and impossible moral perfection. It is a good thing that they are now forced to start soberly thinking about their defense and what that might entail.”

‘MAKE NATO GREAT AGAIN’: HEGSETH PUSHES EUROPEAN ALLIES TO STEP UP DEFENSE EFFORTS

He added that “it is important that we in the United States begin to understand that the center of gravity of European civilization is shifting eastward. The fact that Germany, before Britain and France, seemed to appreciate the threat that it faces and the resulting need to stand up a more robust defense, is symbolic of that shift eastward.”

According to Wurmser, “Symbolically, Germany’s actions represent a realization that is long overdue, but is not yet universally understood. That what happened in February 2022, as well as what is happening in the Middle East against Israel, are only localized versions of a much larger, dangerous, and potentially deadly global competition that is led by several nations in opposition to western civilization.”

CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP

He said, “That axis represents the fusion of communist, Islamist, and fascist thought. That unholy alliance, which is an unlikely alliance, is anchored first and foremost to the loathing of Western civilization. The West will not survive unless it realizes that, and what Germany is doing is to some extent a first small step in that direction.”

Trump urged Germany to pay the U.S. more for its military defense of Germany during his first term.

Moscow accuses Poland of Russophobia, pledges to respond by reducing Polish diplomatic and consular presence in Russia.

Poland has announced it will close its last remaining Russian consulate in the northern Polish city of Gdansk following the targeting of a railway line to Ukraine from Warsaw, blaming Moscow for the incident.

“I have decided to withdraw consent for the operation of the Russian consulate in Gdansk,” Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told journalists on Wednesday.

Sikorski said he had repeatedly warned Russia that its diplomatic and consular presence would be reduced further if it did not cease hostile actions against Poland, Polish news agency PAP reported.

The move means the only Russian diplomatic mission that will remain open in Poland will be the embassy in Warsaw.

The Kremlin responded to the allegation by accusing Poland of “Russophobia”.

“Relations with Poland have completely deteriorated. This is probably a manifestation of this deterioration – the Polish authorities’ desire to reduce any possibility of consular or diplomatic relations to zero,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said when asked about the consulate closure.

“One can only express regret here … This has nothing to do with common sense.”

Later on Wednesday, Russia’s state news agency TASS quoted Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying Moscow will respond by reducing Poland’s diplomatic and consular presence in the country.

‘Unprecedented sabotage’

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has described the weekend explosion on a line linking Warsaw to the border with Ukraine as an “unprecedented act of sabotage”.

On Tuesday, Tusk told the Polish parliament that the two suspects had been collaborating with the Russian secret services for a long time.

As a result of the investigation, we now know it was the Russian Secret Services that commissioned the blast of the Polish railway and recruited two Ukrainians to do it. We also know the identities of the perpetrators who immediately fled Poland for Belarus.

— Donald Tusk (@donaldtusk) November 18, 2025

He said their identities were known but could not be revealed because of the ongoing investigation, and that the pair had already left Poland, crossing into Belarus.

Western officials have accused Russia and its proxies of staging dozens of attacks and other incidents across Europe since the invasion of Ukraine more than three years ago, according to data collected by The Associated Press news agency.

Moscow’s goal, Western officials say, is to undermine support for Ukraine, spark fear and divide European societies.