Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk says Ukraine peace talks possible within months

Peace talks on the war in Ukraine could possibly start this winter, Poland’s prime minister says as he outlined a series of planned meetings as his country seeks to play a leading role in ending the conflict.

Poland has been one of Ukraine’s staunchest supporters since Russia’s 2022 invasion.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Poland would be heavily involved in any talks when it takes up the European Union’s rotating presidency on January 1.

“I will have a series of talks concerning primarily the situation beyond our eastern border,” he told a government meeting.

“As you can imagine, our delegation will be co-responsible for, among other things, what the political calendar will look like, perhaps what the situation will be like during the negotiations - which may, although there is still a question mark, start in the winter of this year.”

Tusk said French President Emmanuel Macron would visit Warsaw on Thursday to give a rundown on talks with US president-elect Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Paris last weekend.

He said he was in constant contact with Poland’s Scandinavian and Baltic allies and that UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer would visit Warsaw in the early days of Poland’s EU presidency.

“I really want Poland to be the country that will not only be present but will set the tone for these decisions that are to bring us security and secure Polish interests,” Tusk said.

Zelenskiy made the case on Monday for a diplomatic resolution to the war, his latest comments suggesting Ukraine’s growing openness to negotiations but said he had told Trump and Macron that he did not believe Putin wants to end the war.

The Kremlin said on Tuesday the war would continue until the goals set by Putin were achieved by military action or through negotiation.

Three people were killed and 16 hurt in a Russian missile strike that destroyed a private clinic in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia on Tuesday and many more were trapped under the rubble, officials said.

Rescuers continued working in piles of waste from the collapsed building after the strike on the city centre, searching for at least eight more people, regional governor Ivan Fedorov said on the Telegram messaging app.

People were being helped out of the badly damaged building.

One person was in a severe condition, and two medics were among the injured, according to Fedorov.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called the strike “brutal” and issued a fresh appeal for allies to supply Ukraine with air defences.

“The world has enough systems to do that. The matter depends entirely on political decisions: decisions by the US administration, European leaders, and other partners around the world,” he said on X, adding that Ukraine provided allies with the list of necessary items.