Ukrainians arrives in US for peace talks
A Ukrainian delegation arrived in the United States for talks Saturday on a US-led diplomatic push to end the nearly 4-year-old war as Russian attacks again took aim at Ukraine’s power grid, cutting electricity and heating in freezing temperatures. Kyrylo Budanov, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, said he arrived in the US to discuss “the details of the peace agreement.”
Writing on the Telegram messaging app, Budanov said he, together with Ukrainian negotiators Rustem Umerov and Davyd Arakhamia, would meet with US envoy Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll. Zelenskyy said Friday that the delegation would try to finalise with US officials documents for a proposed peace settlement that relate to postwar security guarantees and economic recovery.
If American officials approve the proposals, the US and Ukraine could sign the documents next week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Zelenskyy said at a Kyiv news conference with Czech President Petr Pavel. Trump plans to be in Davos, according to organisers. Russia would still need to be consulted on the proposals. Russia struck energy infrastructure in Ukraine’s Kyiv and Odesa regions overnight into Saturday, the Ministry of Energy said.
More than 20 settlements in the Kyiv region were left without power following the attacks, the ministry wrote on its official Telegram channel. Russia has hammered Ukraine’s power grid, especially in winter, throughout the war. It aims to weaken the Ukrainian will to resist in a strategy that Kyiv officials call “weaponising winter.” Ukraine’s new energy minister, Denys Shmyhal, said Friday that Russia had conducted 612 attacks on energy targets over last year.
That barrage has intensified in recent months as nighttime temperatures plunge to minus 18 degrees Celsius. Ukraine has introduced emergency measures, including temporarily easing curfew restrictions to allow people to go whenever they need to public heating centers set up by the authorities, Shmyhal said.
Officials have instructed state energy companies Ukrzaliznytsia, Naftogaz and Ukroboronprom to urgently purchase imported electricity covering at least 50 per cent of their own consum. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky shaking hands with Czech Republic’s President Petr Pavel during their meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine.
