Cloud over Russia-Ukraine talks
Kyiv, Feb 14: Drone strikes killed one person in Ukraine and another in Russia, officials said on Saturday, ahead of fresh talks next week aimed at ending the war.
An elderly woman died when a Russian drone hit a residential building in the Black Sea port city of Odesa, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said.
In Russia, a civilian was killed in a Ukrainian drone strike on a car in the border region of Bryansk, regional Gov. Alexander Bogomaz said.
The attacks came a day after a Ukrainian missile strike on the Russian border city of Belgorod killed two people and wounded five, according to regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov.
Meanwhile, another round of US-brokered talks between envoys from Russia and Ukraine will take place next week in Geneva, days ahead of the fourth anniversary of the all-out Russian invasion of its neighbour, officials in Moscow and Kyiv said on Friday.
The discussions will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in a statement carried by Russian news agencies.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s communications adviser, Dmytro Lytvyn, confirmed the new round of negotiations.
The talks take place against a backdrop of continued fighting along the roughly 1,250-kilometre (750-mile) front line, relentless Russian bombardment of civilian areas of Ukraine and the country’s power grid, and Kyiv’s almost daily long-range drone attacks on war-related assets on Russian soil.
Previous US-led efforts to find consensus on ending the war, most recently two rounds of talks in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, have failed to resolve difficult issues, such as the future of Ukraine’s Donbas industrial heartland that is largely occupied by Russian forces.
Speaking at the annual Munich Security Conference on Saturday, Zelenskyy repeatedly thanked American and European allies for helping Ukraine by providing air defence systems that protect infrastructure like power plants and “save lives.”
“Russian attacks happen almost every night in Ukraine, and at least once a week, massive strikes,” he said, speaking in English.
“Without you Americans, Europeans, and everyone who stands with us, it would have been very, very difficult to hold on.”
He reiterated his belief that security guarantees for Ukraine must come before any peace agreement with Russia.
Zelenskyy said last week that the United States has given Ukraine and Russia a June deadline to reach a deal. Previous deadlines given by US President Donald Trump have passed largely without consequence.
Russia is pushing for Ukraine to pull out of the fifth of the eastern Donetsk region in the Donbas that it still controls.
Ukraine, for its part, has rejected a unilateral pull-back and wants Western security guarantees to deter Russia from re-launching its offensive if a ceasefire is reached. (Agencies)
