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Politico (13 February 2026)

Felicia Schwartz, Paul McLeary and Jack Detsch

For the past three years, the annual Munich Security Conference has been the backdrop to high-stakes negotiations on the war between Russia and Ukraine. This year, it’s likely to serve as a glaring reminder of just how stuck talks are.

Dozens of world leaders and senior officials including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will descend on the grand and historic Bayerischer Hof hotel beginning Friday. But six European officials said they did not expect many concrete results to come out of the gathering other than statements of solidarity.

The U.S. has made clear to Ukraine that it will not finalize a deal on security guarantees to protect Ukraine from future Russian aggression until Kyiv and Moscow reach an overall agreement to end the war, according to two of the European officials and a senior U.S. official. And with Russia holding firm on demands for territory that Ukraine won’t budge on, the peace process is jammed.

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