Ukrainian and Russian negotiators began a second day of U.S. brokered talks in Abu Dhabi on Saturday after an overnight wave of Russian airstrikes that knocked out power for millions of people amid freezing winter temperatures.
The strikes by hundreds of Russian drones and missiles on Kyiv and Ukraine’s second largest city Kharkiv prompted Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, who was not present at the talks to accuse Russian President Vladimir Putin of acting “cynically”.
“This attack once again proves that Putin’s place is not at U.S. President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace, but in the dock of the special tribunal,” Sybiha wrote on X.
Kyiv is under mounting Trump administration pressure to make concessions to reach a peace deal in the war triggered by Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
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Zelenskiy had said on Friday that it was too early to draw conclusions from the first day of meetings in Abu Dhabi, and he had urged Russia to show it was ready to end the war. Senior representatives from Ukraine’s armed forces and military intelligence were due to join the talks on Saturday.
Although U.S. peace envoy Steve Witkoff struck an upbeat tone at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos this week, saying that only one sticking point remained in the talks, Russian officials have sounded more sceptical.
Ahead of the discussions, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday Russia had not dropped its insistence on Ukraine yielding all of its eastern area of Donbas, Ukraine’s industrial heartland grouping the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Putin’s demand that Ukraine surrender the 20% it still holds of Donetsk – about 5,000 sq km (1,900 sq miles) has proven a major stumbling block to any deal.
Zelenskiy refuses to give up land that Russia has not been able to capture in four years of grinding, attritional warfare. Polls show little appetite among Ukrainians for any territorial concessions.
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.
REUTERS