loading . . . Ukraine war briefing: US reports ’constructive’ peace talks with Russia as Zelenskyy pushes for ‘results’ Steve Witkoff encouraged ‘that Russia is working toward securing peace’ as Ukraine president looks to meetings ‘next week’. What we know on day 1,439
The US envoy Steve Witkoff has said he held constructive talks with a Russian envoy in Florida as part of Washington’s drive to end the war in Ukraine. The meeting on Saturday came just a day before Ukrainian and Russian negotiators were scheduled to meet in Abu Dhabi to discuss a US-backed plan to halt the conflict.
“Today in Florida, the Russian Special Envoy Kirill Dmitriev held productive and constructive meetings as part of the US mediation effort toward advancing a peaceful resolution of the Ukrainian conflict,” Witkoff posted on X. “We are encouraged by this meeting that Russia is working toward securing peace in Ukraine.” He said the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and White House senior adviser Josh Gruenbaum also attended the talks. Neither side released details of what was discussed.
The second round of peace talks in Abu Dhabi were set to start on Sunday, even if the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, suggested earlier this week that it might be postponed because of the US-Iran crisis. Zelensky said in his evening address on Saturday his negotiators were also waiting to hear from the US on further meetings. “Ukraine is ready to work in all working formats,” Zelenskyy said. “It is important that there are results and that the meetings take place. We are counting on meetings next week and are preparing for them.”
Teams from Ukraine and Russia met last week in Abu Dhabi in their first in-person negotiations on a plan being pushed by Trump. The US says both sides are close to a deal, but they have so far been unable to find a compromise on the key issue of territory in a postwar settlement, according to Kyiv.
Emergency power cuts swept across several Ukrainian cities and neighbouring Moldova on Saturday, officials said, amid a commitment from Russia to pause strikes on Kyiv as Ukraine battles one of its bleakest winters in years. Donald Trump on Thursday claimed Vladimir Putin had agreed to halt strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure for a week. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed that Trump “made a personal request” to Putin to stop targeting Kyiv until Sunday “in order to create favourable conditions for negotiations”. In a post on social media, Zelenskyy noted Russia has turned its attention to targeting Ukrainian logistics networks.
Ukraine’s energy minister, Denys Shmyhal, said that the outages on Saturday had been caused by a technical malfunction affecting power lines linking Ukraine and Moldova. The failure “caused a cascading outage in Ukraine’s power grid”, triggering automatic protection systems, he said. Blackouts were reported in Kyiv, as well as Zhytomyr and Kharkiv regions, in the centre and north-east of the country respectively.
The outage cut water supplies to the Ukrainian capital, officials said, while the city’s subway system was temporarily suspended because of low voltage on the network. The state emergency service said its teams led 500 stranded passengers out of metro stations.
Moldova also experienced major power outages, including in the capital Chisinau, officials said. “Due to the loss of power lines on the territory of Ukraine, the automatic protection system was triggered, which disconnected the electricity supply,” Moldova’s energy minister Dorin Junghietu said in a post on Facebook. “I encourage the population to stay calm until electricity is restored.”
The large-scale outage followed weeks of Russian strikes against Ukraine’s already struggling energy grid, which have triggered long stretches of severe power shortages. Moscow has sought to deny Ukrainian civilians heat, light and running water over the course of the war, in a strategy that Ukrainian officials describe as “weaponising winter”.
Forecasters say Ukraine will experience a brutally cold period stretching into next week. Temperatures in some areas will drop to -30C, authorities said. Continue reading... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/feb/01/ukraine-war-briefing-us-reports-constructive-peace-talks-with-russia?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=bluesky&CMP=bsky_gu
