Kyiv has now expressed readiness to drop its bid to join the NATO military alliance if the U.S. and other Western nations give it similar security guarantees.

A 1,000-strong "dark fleet" of rogue tankers evading sanctions has become a new target for the U.S. and Ukraine, according to a senior maritime intelligence analyst.

ALMOST THERE?: Negotiators meeting to work out an agreement to end Russia’s war in Ukraine emerged from the second day of high-level negotiations in Berlin with some signs of optimism for the U.S.-led efforts to end the war.

Ukraine has relinquished its ambition of joining the NATO military alliance in exchange for Western security guarantees as a compromise to end the war with Russia, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said ahead of talks with U.S. envoys in Berlin.

The head of Britain’s MI6 spy agency says Russian President Vladimir Putin is stalling efforts to end Russia’s war on Ukraine, and is testing the West with tactics that fall “just below the threshold of war.

The Kremlin has described Ukraine’s push to join NATO as one of the “root causes” of the conflict. U.S. President Donald Trump has ruled out Ukrainian membership in the Western defensive alliance. Zelensky is searching for compromises that could secure a peace deal to end Russia’s ongoing invasion.

U.S. peace negotiators have told Ukraine during peace talks in Berlin that it must agree to withdraw its forces from the eastern Donetsk region as part of any deal to end the nearly four-year-old war,

U.S. officials have indicated that Putin is open to Ukraine joining the European Union, as well as other security guarantees to Ukraine.