Zelensky to land in Berlin Tuesday in surprise visit, Merz says

Volodymyr Zelensky is heading to Berlin today, and almost nobody knew it was coming. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz broke the news Tuesday during a speech before the Berlin Chamber of Industry and Commerce, saying the Ukrainian president's visit was deliberately kept under wraps for security reasons. Merz offered no further details on the agenda.

The trip lands at a delicate diplomatic moment. US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff said a new round of trilateral peace talks between Russia, Ukraine and the United States is set for Abu Dhabi next week, and European representatives are expected to take part. Consultations between US envoys and officials from Germany, France, the United Kingdom, NATO and the European Union are scheduled later this week, per Breaking The News.

The backdrop is brutal. Zelensky said on X that Russia launched 289 drones overnight along with 17 ballistic and 59 cruise missiles, hammering critical infrastructure across Odesa, Cherkasy, Zhytomyr, Vinnytsia, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Chernivtsi, Chernihiv and the Rivne region. He also said rescue operations have been running since yesterday in the Zaporizhzhia region, and that Russian attacks have killed 29 people while injuring five others.

Both sides kept swinging. The Ukrainian military struck a refinery in Yaroslavl, a Russian city northeast of Moscow, causing a fire at a facility used by the Russian military, according to the Astra Telegram channel. Russia's Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said its air defenses intercepted 856 Ukrainian drones overnight across a long list of regions, and claimed another massive strike on Ukrainian energy infrastructure in the Vinnytsia, Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv regions, plus port facilities and vessels in the Odesa region.

So what happens next? Berlin today, US-European consultations in the coming days, then Abu Dhabi next week. Zelensky's unannounced stop in Germany signals Europe wants a hand in whatever comes out of those talks — and wants it before the negotiating table is set.