KYIV – A Ukrainian delegation arrived in the United States for talks Saturday on a U.S.-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 U.S. to discuss “the details of the peace agreement.”
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Writing on the Telegram messaging app, Budanov said he, together with Ukrainian negotiators Rustem Umerov and Davyd Arakhamia, would meet with U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll.
Also on Telegram, Zelenskyy said Saturday that the principal task for the Ukrainian delegation was to convey how ongoing Russian strikes are undermining diplomacy.
The strikes, he said, are “constantly worsening even the small opportunities for dialogue that existed. The American side must understand this.”
Zelenskyy's latest comments came after he said Friday that the delegation would try to finalize with U.S. officials documents for a proposed peace settlement that relate to postwar security guarantees and economic recovery.
If American officials approve the proposals, the U.S. 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 organizers.
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.
Kharkiv mayor Ihor Terekhov said a Russian attack on a critical infrastructure facility in the city's industrial district Saturday could seriously affect power and heating in Ukraine's second-largest city. One person was wounded in the attack.
“We’re talking about serious strikes on the system that keeps the city warm and lit,” he wrote on Telegram, adding that the system is ”constantly operating at its limits." Each new strike, he said, means “maintaining a stable supply will become even more difficult, and recovery will be longer and harder.”
Zelenskyy said Sunday he held a special energy coordination meeting, noting that the most difficult situations with regard to energy were in the cities of Kyiv, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia, and the surrounding regions.
He said Ukraine needed to ramp up the importation of electricity and the acquisition of additional equipment from partners.
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 “weaponizing 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 (0 Fahrenheit).
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. He said hospitals, schools and other critical infrastructure remain the top priority for electricity and heat supplies.
Officials have instructed state energy companies Ukrzaliznytsia, Naftogaz and Ukroboronprom to urgently purchase imported electricity covering at least 50% of their own consumption, according to Shmyhal.
___ Morton reported from London. ___
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