Tusk: US says for the first time it will respond militarily if Russia attacks Ukraine again

If Russia attacks Ukraine again, the United States will respond militarily to the aggressor, said Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who attended the Berlin summit on peace in Ukraine.

"For the first time, I heard American negotiators say, and Mr Steve Witkoff was unequivocal here: America will be involved in security guarantees for Ukraine in such a way that the Russians will have no doubts that [in the event of a ceasefire violation] the US response will be military," Tusk said, as quted by Polish online portal Onet News.

Tusk called it a fact that "perhaps for the first time it was so clearly visible that the Americans, Europeans and Ukraine are all on the same side."

The Polish prime minister also emphasised that the only real way to force Russia to enter serious talks to end the war, or at least to agree on a ceasefire, is for the entire West to act together.

"We must act as allies alongside the Americans and Ukrainians so that the Russians and Putin see it's impossible to drive a wedge between these three parties," Tusk noted.

On 15 December, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with a large group of European leaders in Berlin.

Earlier on the same day, talks took place in Berlin between the Ukrainian and US delegations regarding a "peace plan". AFP reported that US negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had pressed Ukrainian representatives to give up the part of Donbas still under Kyiv's control.

Zelenskyy said that Ukraine will not recognise Donbas as Russian, either de facto or de jure.