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Zelensky says negotiations will focus on status of eastern Donbas region as search for elusive agreement on territory continues
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Two of Ukraine’s largest cities have been targeted just hours after Russia and Ukraine marked the first day in three-way negotiations held in Abu Dhabi
Volodymyr Zelensky had said that Vladimir Putin must be ready to end the war he started, as the landmark peace talks, marking the first such talks since the war erupted in February 2022, concluded.
Dozens of people were injured in Kyiv and Kharkiv after a major missile and drone attack overnight, with at least one person dead in the capital.
As the first day ended on Friday, the Ukrainian president said in his evening address to the nation: “The key is that Russia must be ready to end the war it started.”
Zelensky told reporters the talks will focus on the eastern Donbas, which includes the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that are largely – but not entirely – occupied by Russia.
The Kremlin made it clear early that keeping Donbas was a “very important condition”.
The negotiations are “scheduled to continue over two days, as part of ongoing efforts to promote dialogue and identify political solutions to the crisis”, the UAE’s foreign ministry said. US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are expected to mediate.
Volodymyr Zelensky has responded to a Russian strike on energy infrastructure, saying it proves there must be no delays in air defence supplies and agreements on air defence made with Donald Trump at DAVOS must be fully implemented.
Hundreds of thousands of Chernihiv region residents have been left without power after an overnight Russian attack.
It is currently -16C in the Chernihiv region, as Ukraine continues to tackle the bitter cold of a particularly harsh winter.
Russia attacked Ukraine’s two largest cities Kyiv and Kharkiv early on Saturday, officials said, with one person killed and at least 15 injured. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said one person was killed in the capital city and four injured, including three being treated in hospital.
Klitschko said the strikes had triggered fires in districtson either side of the Dnipro River, which bisects the capital. He said heating and water supplies had been disrupted in parts of the city east of the river.
Ukraine’s air force said both drones and missiles had been deployed in the assault on the capital.
Tymur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, reported strikes in at least four districts. A medical facility was among the buildings damaged.
Kyiv has already endured two mass overnight attacks since the New Year that have knocked out power and heating to hundreds of residential buildings. Emergency workers were still engaged in restoring services to residents, with overnight temperatures dipping to minus 13 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit).
In Kharkiv, a frequent target 30 km (18 miles) from the Russian border, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said 25 drones had hit several districts over 2-1/2 hours, with at least 11 people injured.
Writing on Telegram, Terekhov said the drones had struck a dormitory for displaced people, a hospital and a maternity hospital.
The latest attacks occurred after negotiators from Ukraine, Russia and the United States completed the first of two days of talks in the United Arab Emirates aimed at finding a resolution of the nearly four-year-old war.
The tripartite talks are unfolding against a backdrop of intensified Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy system that have cut power and heating to major cities such as Kyiv, as temperatures dip well below freezing.
The head of Ukraine’s top private power producer, Maxim Timchenko, told Reuters on Friday the situation was nearing a “humanitarian catastrophe” and that Ukraine needs a ceasefire that halts attacks on energy infrastructure.
Kyiv’s energy minister said on Thursday that Ukraine’s power grid had endured its most difficult day since a widespread blackout in November 2022, when Russia began bombing energy infrastructure.
Russia says it wants a diplomatic solution but will keep working to achieve its goals by military means as long as a negotiated solution remains elusive.
A man fighting for the life of his country against an invader should be forgiven the passion and colour of his language when calling for help from his friends.
Volodymyr Zelensky’s stinging rhetoric was very much his own at Davos when he called Europe a “salad”.
“Dear friends, we should not degrade ourselves to secondary roles, not when we have a chance to be a great power together. We should not accept that Europe is just a salad of small and middle powers, seasoned with enemies of Europe,” the Ukrainian president thundered.
The World Economic Forum was silent at the rebuke. Global leaders, business titans, European bureaucrats, squirmed.
Here they were faced with the grizzled figure that Vladimir Putin’s special forces have consistently failed to kill, who leads a nation freezing at home at -20C while its soldiers defend Europe and had to swallow their diminished proportions.
In the middle of Ukraine’s fiercest winter of the war, many Ukrainians are unable to prepare hot meals or are unable to heat their homes while temperatures have dipped as low as -20C in the past few weeks. Harsher weather is forecast.
Russia has once again targeted Ukraine with sustained attacks on power stations, energy grids and heating nodes affecting electricity, as well as heating systems and water pumps.
Following the Russian strikes on January 20, around 5,600 apartment buildings in Kyiv were left without heating and almost half of Kyiv was believed to be without heat and power, affecting around one million people. The situation is so dire that the city has set up “heating tents” to help people stay warm in the freezing temperatures. Other cities have also been attacked.
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky declared the situation an energy emergency.
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