Only Ukraine can decide when the time has come for serious negotiations – Stoltenberg

Ukraine alone should decide whether to agree to negotiate with Russia or not, and the main task of Kyiv’s foreign partners is to continue to help make Ukraine as strong as possible, former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in an interview with Der Spiegel.

Jens Stoltenberg stressed in an interview with Der Spiegel that only Ukraine "can decide when the time has come for serious negotiations or even peace talks and what the preconditions are".

"But the end of the war will not necessarily bring peace because the Russian occupation is not peace."

The former NATO Secretary General says the task is to end the war so that Ukraine "can survive as a sovereign and independent state," Stoltenberg said.

"Putin must be convinced that he cannot achieve his goals on the battlefield. To achieve this, we must provide more support to Ukraine. I have no illusions about this. We will not be able to change Putin. But I think we can change his plan if we continue to support Ukraine," he added.

Jens Stoltenberg also believes that the failure to provide Ukraine with on-time military support simplified Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reiterated in Berlin that he would like the war to end no later than 2025 and said he would present a Ukraineʼs Victory Plan to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz that would help achieve this.

In addition, Zelenskyy discussed Ukraineʼs Victory Plan with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, French leader Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.