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A second round of talks between Russian, Ukrainian and US officials on a US-drafted plan to end the nearly four-year Ukraine war will begin on Wednesday, instead of on Sunday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.Zelensky did not give a reason for the delay.The announcement comes a day after one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's top envoys held surprise talks with US officials in Florida without Ukraine."The dates for the next trilateral meetings have been set -- February 4 and 5 in Abu Dhabi," Zelensky said in a post on X.Neither the Kremlin nor the United States have confirmed the new dates.The United States says it is close to brokering a deal to end the conflict -- Europe's deadliest since World War II -- but neither Moscow nor Kyiv have been able to find a compromise on the key issue of territory.Russia, which occupies around 20 percent of its neighbour, is pushing for full control of Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region as part of any deal. It has threatened to take it by force if talks fail.Ukraine has warned ceding ground will embolden Moscow and that it will not sign a deal that fails to deter Russia from invading again. Many Ukrainians find the idea of surrendering territory that their soldiers have defended for years unconscionable.The first round of talks on the US plan, held in Abu Dhabi last Friday and Saturday, failed to yield a breakthrough.A day ahead of Zelensky's announcement, Russia's top economic envoy Kirill Dmitriev met with US officials in Florida for separate talks on the war.Among those US officials were President Donald Trump's peace envoy Steve Witkoff, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, son-in-law Jared Kushner, and White House Senior Advisor Josh Gruenbaum."We are encouraged by this meeting that Russia is working toward securing peace in Ukraine," Witkoff said, though neither side released details of what was discussed.Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, describing it as a "special military operation" to prevent the expansion of NATO -- a war aim that Kyiv has called a pretext for an illegal land grab.The conflict has since resulted in a tidal wave of destruction that has left entire cities in ruins and tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians dead.Russian attacks on Ukraine overnight and early Sunday killed at least two people and injured seven others, regional authorities said.Among the attacks was a drone strike on a maternity hospital in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia that injured two women undergoing a medical examination, the region's governor and rescuers said.Ukraine's defence minister on Sunday thanked Elon Musk after the US tycoon said efforts to stop Russia from using Starlink satellites for drone attacks seemed to have worked."The first steps are already delivering real results... Thank you for standing with us. You are a true champion of freedom and a true friend of the Ukrainian people," said Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov. 

After running her stiff fingers along the keys, Ukrainian piano teacher Yevgenia retreated to her fort of mattresses and sheets to shelter from the cold reigning in her Kyiv flat.Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said the country would declare a "state of emergency" in its energy sector, battered by massive Russian strikes and buckling as temperatures dip as low as -20C.A Russian barrage of drones and missiles last week left half of the Ukrainian capital without heating, prompting mayor Vitali Klitschko to call on residents to temporarily leave the city if able to do so.Six days later, some 300 apartment buildings still lack heating and the capital is facing prolonged emergency rolling blackouts, imposed by the authorities to ration precious supplies.In Yevgenia's flat, the temperature was hovering at a chilly 12C.The heating in her building connected to city's electric grid gets cut off with every blackout, as backup batteries do not have the capacity to take over."We've been without power for 12 hours," she told AFP. "And that's not even the worst scenario."Every hour without power, the temperature in her living room dropped further."With each passing day, we're getting closer to zero."'To break people'Equipped with her flashlight and with her cat by her side, Yevgenia slipped into a pocket of warmth inside the apartment: a makeshift mattress castle.The temperature inside reached 24C."This idea came to me Thursday at midnight," said the 32-year-old, surprised at its effectiveness."I just wanted some kind of feeling, I don't know, of safety, of childhood."Russia has pummelled Ukraine's energy grid each winter since invading in February 2022, attacks Kyiv says are designed to hurt civilians."This is an attempt to break people," Oleksandr Kharchenko, director of Kyiv-based Energy Industry Research Study Center told AFP.He accused Russia of trying to drive major cities "into a man-made disaster, into an absolute crisis."Right now the situation is the most difficult of the entire war in terms of energy supply and heating in several major regions," he added.In Kyiv, the glow of car headlights and runners' headlamps dotted the otherwise frozen, blacked-out city streets after sunset.The sound of Russian attack drones mixed with the low hum of power generators.But residents dared not look up to check the threat from above, their gazes fixed on the path ahead to avoid slipping.People exercised by candlelight in gyms, got their hair cut by the light of headlamps, and scanned supermarket shelves using the light from their mobile phones.Without electricity in homes, fridges served as shelves and balconies as freezers.No 'disaster'The city has also set up large, heated tents where hot meals are distributed. But amid the crisis, politics has also been at play. Zelensky has blasted city officials for the response."Far too little has been done in the capital", he said in a video address on Wednesday.Mayor Klitschko, a political rival and former heavyweight boxing champion, has hit back.Such statements "diminish the selfless work of thousands of people," he said on Telegram, denouncing messages of "hate" directed at him.Zelensky has ordered an urgent increase in the volume of electricity imports to help put the lights back on.Yevgenia, meanwhile, was waiting for winter to end in her blanket fort, flanked by her phone, her power bank "and the kitty, of course.""The cat is priceless," she said. 

President Volodymyr Zelensky Monday sought to reinforce European support for Ukraine at a potentially pivotal moment in Kyiv’s battle against the Russian invasion, meeting President Emmanuel Macron in Paris as Washington pushed a plan to end the war. Zelensky held talks with Macron at the Elysee, with Ukraine weighing its options over the plan championed by US President Donald Trump but which European countries fear risks caving in to Russian demands. The situation has been further complicated by a corruption scandal that has rocked Zelensky’s inner circle and forced the removal last week of his top negotiator and chief of staff Andriy Yermak. Over three-and-a-half years into Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour, Kyiv is also under pressure on the battlefield as Russia’s offensive grinds forward.US and Ukrainian negotiators held hours of what both sides called “productive” talks in Florida on Sunday, with Trump declaring on Air Force One “there’s a good chance we can make a deal”. “The work for peace continues,” Macron wrote in a brief post on X after welcoming Zelensky for talks “There are some tough issues that still have to be worked through,” Zelensky wrote on social media earlier Monday, following new telephone talks with Finland President Alexander Stubb, who has warm relations with both the American and Ukrainian leaders. Zelensky described the talks in the United States as “very constructive”, adding that decisions would be taken on Ukraine’s “further activities” once the delegation returning from there had been debriefed. “It could be a pivotal week for diplomacy. We heard Monday that the talks in America were difficult but productive,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas added at a meeting of EU defence ministers. Washington put forward an initial 28-point proposal to halt the war, drafted without input from Ukraine’s European allies and regarded as too close a reflection of Moscow’s maximalist demands on Ukrainian territory. It would have seen Kyiv withdraw from its eastern Donetsk region and the United States de facto recognise the Donetsk, Crimea and Lugansk regions as Russian. After talks in Geneva just over a week ago, the United States updated the original blueprint following criticism from Kyiv and Europe, but the current contents remain unclear. In an article for Britain’s Telegraph newspaper published at the weekend, Ukraine’s former armed forces chief Valery Zaluzhny offered a downbeat assessment of Ukraine’s predicament, saying that “we are in an extremely difficult situation, where a rushed peace will only lead to a devastating defeat and loss of independence”. Zaluzhny, now ambassador to London and seen by some as a domestic rival of Zelensky, said that without security guarantees including Ukrainian membership of Nato, the “war will probably continue” with Russia’s goal “the abolition of Ukraine as an independent state.” Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff is due in Moscow for follow-up talks and is expected to discuss Ukraine with Putin today. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters the Florida talks were “very productive” but there was “more work to be done”. “There are a lot of moving parts, and obviously there’s another party involved here that will have to be a part of the equation, and that will continue later this week when Mr Witkoff travels to Moscow,” he said. The diplomatic push comes as the war — which has killed tens of thousands of civilians and military personnel and displaced millions of Ukrainians — shows no sign of easing. A Russian missile attack killed four people and wounded nearly two dozen others Monday in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, the governor of the region said. Local officials released images of the aftermath showing emergency services responding at the scene, cars destroyed and buildings with their windows blown out. Zelensky is due today to make his first official trip to Ireland, which is not a Nato member but takes over the rotating EU presidency in the second half of 2026. 

The US has signalled to President Volodymyr Zelensky that Ukraine must accept a US-drafted framework to end the war with Russia that proposes Kyiv giving up territory and some weapons, two people familiar with the matter said Wednesday.The sources said the proposals included cutting the size of Ukraine's armed forces, among other things. Washington wants Kyiv to accept the main points, they said. Such a plan would represent a major setback for Kyiv.A senior Ukrainian official earlier told Reuters that Kyiv had received "signals" about a set of US proposals to end the war that Washington has discussed with Russia. Ukraine has had no role in preparing the proposals, the source said.Zelensky is due to meet US Army officials in Kyiv today. Russian forces have pressed on with Moscow's nearly four-year-old war in Ukraine, killing 25 people in strikes overnight. Russian President Vladimir Putin has long demanded Kyiv renounce plans to join the Nato military alliance and withdraw its troops from four provinces Moscow claims as part of Russia.Moscow has given no indication that it has dropped any of those demands and Ukraine says it will not accept them.

President Volodymyr Zelensky has received the draft of a new US-backed plan to end Russia's war in Ukraine and expects to have talks with President Donald Trump in the coming days, Zelensky's office said Thursday.Two sources told Reuters on Wednesday that Washington had signalled to Zelensky that Kyiv must accept the US-drafted framework to end the nearly-four-year-old war, which includes territorial concessions and curbs on Ukraine's armed forces.European countries pushed back Thursday against the plan, which sources said would require Kyiv to give up more land and partially disarm, conditions long seen by Ukraine's allies as tantamount to capitulation. "We are ready now, as before, to work constructively with the American side, as well as with our partners in Europe and around the world, so that the outcome is peace," Zelensky's office said in a statement on Telegram. Zelensky's talks with Trump would include discussion of the "key points required to achieve peace", it said.Trump and Zelensky clashed in front of television cameras in a disastrous meeting for the Ukrainian leader at the White House in March, but talks went more smoothly when he visited the White House this summer. The acceleration in US diplomacy comes at an awkward time for Kyiv, with its troops on the back foot on the battlefield and Zelensky's government undermined by a corruption scandal.Parliament fired two cabinet ministers on Wednesday. Moscow played down any new US initiative. "Consultations are not currently under way. There are contacts, of course, but there is no process that could be called consultations," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. He said Russia had nothing to add beyond the position President Vladimir Putin laid out at a summit with US President Donald Trump in August, adding that any peace deal must address the "root causes of the conflict", a phrase Moscow has long used to refer to its demands.With another winter approaching in the nearly four-year-old war, Russian troops occupy almost one-fifth of Ukraine and are poised to capture their first substantial city in nearly two years — the ruined eastern railway hub of Pokrovsk.Video footage released by Russia's defence ministry Thursday showed its troops moving freely through the southern part of Pokrovsk, patrolling deserted streets lined with charred apartment blocks. European Union foreign ministers meeting in Brussels did not comment in detail about the US plan, which has not been made public, but indicated they would not accept demands for Kyiv to make punishing concessions. "Ukrainians want peace — a just peace that respects everyone's sovereignty, a durable peace that can't be called into question by future aggression," said French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot. "But peace cannot be a capitulation."German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said US special envoy Steve Witkoff had, during a phone call Thursday, underlined "the importance of close coordination with Germany and our European partners" in talks to end the war.The White House has not commented on the reported proposals. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on X that Washington would "continue to develop a list of potential ideas for ending this war based on input from both sides of this conflict". "...Achieving a durable peace will require both sides to agree to difficult but necessary concessions," Rubio said.A US Army delegation, led by Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and the Army's Chief of Staff Randy George, was in Kyiv and expected to meet Zelenskiy late Thursday. They met Ukraine's top military commander Oleksandr Syrskyi late on Wednesday. Syrskyi said the best way to secure a just peace was to defend Ukraine's airspace, extend its ability to strike deep into Russia and stabilise the front line.

Greece signed a deal with Ukraine Sunday to supply US-origin liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the war-battered country whose energy infrastructure has been crippled by Russian strikes.The agreement came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Athens at the start of a European tour aimed at shoring up his country's defences and energy supply, as it enters another gruelling winter nearly four years into Russia's invasion.Exhausted and outnumbered Ukrainian troops are struggling to fend off Russian forces, and both sides have been attacking each other's energy infrastructure power stations and oil refineries as the war drags on with no sign of peace talks.Greece's national gas company DEPA Commercial and its Ukrainian counterpart Naftogaz announced the deal, which will run from December 2025 until March 2026, following a meeting between Zelensky and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.The agreement "marks an essential step in strengthening regional energy cooperation and European energy security", according to a joint statement.The deal, signed at a ceremony attended by US ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle, will make it possible to "support Ukraine in the midst of a difficult winter", Mitsotakis and Zelensky said.Guilfoyle visited Zelensky at the Ukrainian embassy in Athens Sunday, the state-run ERTNEWS tv channel reported."Relations between our countries are taking on a crucial new dimension: that of a new secure energy artery, stretching from south to north, from Greece to Ukraine," Mitsotakis said.He called the deal a "decisive step toward definitive energy independence from Russian gas" — a key goal for Europe, which has struggled to wean itself off imports.Most European Union countries recently approved a ban on imports of Russian natural gas by the end of 2027, a decision aimed at hitting Russia's funding for the war.Mitsotakis also pledged Greek support for Ukraine's postwar reconstruction and to deepening defence cooperation, according to a joint declaration.They plan on "enhancing security in the maritime domain, including cooperation on the development and deployment of maritime (sea) UAVs, joint exercises and training related to unmanned maritime systems, and enhanced information-sharing on maritime threats."The Ukrainian president expressed gratitude to US President Donald Trump "for the fact that we will be able to receive natural gas not only from Greece, but also (US gas) via Greece".Zelensky, who is to visit France and Spain on his tour, called the agreement a "significant part of the comprehensive energy package we have prepared for this winter".The approaching winter poses "a huge challenge... for the Ukrainian people", he said."Practically every night now, the Russians are striking our infrastructure, especially our energy infrastructure," he said."Most of Ukraine's power plants, our gas production facilities and our thermal power plants have become targets."Zelensky's first visit to Greece since 2023 follows the recent announcement of major energy projects in Greece, supported by the United States.Greek authorities plan to cooperate with US companies to increase the flow of American liquefied natural gas to Greek terminals.Greece is "the natural gateway for American liquefied natural gas to replace Russian gas in the region," Mitsotakis said at a conference this month in Athens hosted by the United States.The recent launch of a Trans-Adriatic pipeline connecting Greece and Bulgaria has enabled the country to contribute to a "vertical" corridor delivering gas towards Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Hungary and Slovakia.The opening of storage infrastructure at the port of Alexandroupolis, near the Greek-Turkish border and where American LNG arrives, has also helped undermine Russia's market in the region.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has denied reports suggesting the existence of an agreed-upon "12-point peace plan" to end the war with Russia."It's important in this matter whether I, as the President of Ukraine, have seen this plan. I haven't. I think that answers all the questions. There are different European thoughts and proposals regarding a peaceful settlement," Zelenskyy said in remarks cited by Ukrainian National News Agency (Ukrinform).He also expressed surprise at claims regarding Russia's alleged participation in possible negotiations, saying: "It's strange to hear that Russia is at the negotiating table, since currently no European leader or the US president can force them to do so."Zelensky stressed that any further progress toward a peace settlement must involve the United States, emphasizing that moving to a diplomatic stage is impossible without Washington's political and military support."Our position is this: there are now consultations among advisers, several different discussions are ongoing, but there is no concrete, finalized plan on the table yet," he added.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will travel to Sweden on Wednesday, where the two countries will make a "defence export" announcement, the Swedish government said. Zelensky and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson will meet in the town of Linkoping, home to defence group Saab which produces the Gripen jet fighter among other weapons."Following their meeting, Kristersson and Zelensky will hold a joint press conference to make an announcement in the area of defence export," the government said in a statement."A strong and capable Ukraine is a key priority for Sweden, and we will continue to make sure Ukraine can fight back against Russia's aggression," Kristersson wrote on social media platform X.Last year, Sweden suspended plans to send its Gripen fighter jets to Ukraine, after partner countries requested that priority be given to American F-16s.The press conference is scheduled to be held at 3:00 pm (1300 GMT).