Ukraine’s president says the US has also proposed new trilateral talks in Miami, which he said Ukraine will attend.
The United States has given Ukraine and Russia a June deadline to reach an agreement to end the nearly four-year war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said.
“The Americans are proposing the parties end the war by the beginning of this summer and will probably put pressure on the parties precisely according to this schedule,” Zelenskyy told reporters in Kyiv on Friday, in comments embargoed until Saturday.
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list of 3 itemsend of listHe added that President Donald Trump’s administration has insisted on a clear timeline for all events and has proposed holding the next round of trilateral talks next week in the US, likely in Miami. Ukraine has confirmed it will attend.
Trump had boasted that he would end the war in 24 hours when he took office. But more than 12 months later, any peace settlement remains elusive, with critics accusing Trump of being manipulated by Russian President Vladimir Putin to lean towards the Kremlin’s war narrative and maximalist demands.
The new deadline comes after US-mediated trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi between Russia and Ukraine. Those talks have yielded little progress, with both sides sticking to opposing demands. The Kremlin has demanded that Ukraine withdraw from the heavily industrialised eastern Donbas region, comprised of Donetsk and Luhansk, where the fiercest fighting continues. Kyiv has firmly rejected this condition. Beyond that, it is also forbidden by the Ukrainian constitution to cede the eastern territory, which Russia is demanding.
However, the two sides agreed to each hand over 157 prisoners of war, with officials from Ukraine and the US as well as Russia’s Ministry of Defence confirming that the exchange had taken place on February 5. Zelenskyy added on Saturday that prisoner-of-war swaps will continue with Russia under the agreement.
US special envoy Steve Witkoff, who led the American mediation team alongside Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, said on Thursday that while “significant work remains” in peace talks, the prisoner swap showed that “sustained diplomatic engagement is delivering tangible results and advancing efforts to end the war in Ukraine”.
American officials did not state what action they would take if their deadlines were not met.
‘Russia hit Ukraine’s energy sector with drones and missiles’
While the two sides are already at the negotiating table, Kyiv argues that Russia is continuing to prioritise war.
Zelenskyy said on Saturday that Russia launched “more than 400 drones and around 40 missiles” overnight, targeting Ukraine’s energy sector.
He said that Russia could choose real diplomacy every day, but instead it continues to carry out new strikes.
“It is crucial that everyone who supports the trilateral negotiations respond to this,” he wrote in a post on X. “Moscow must be deprived of the ability to use the cold as leverage against Ukraine.”
Russia’s negotiator Kirill Dmitriev told state media on Thursday that negotiations were moving forward in a “good, positive direction”.
Earlier this week, Ukrainian officials said Russia had struck energy infrastructure 217 times this year. Ukraine’s energy minister, Denys Shmyhal, said 200 emergency crews were working to restore power to 1,100 buildings in Kyiv alone.
Since mid-January, Russia has targeted power stations, gas pipelines and power cables, leaving hundreds of thousands without heat or electricity at various points.
On January 29, Trump said Putin had agreed to halt strikes on energy infrastructure for a week during freezing weather conditions, something the Kremlin confirmed. Despite this, on February 3, Russia launched one of its largest attacks on Kyiv and Kharkiv, deploying 71 missiles and 450 drones.
The Ukrainian Air Force spokesperson Yurii Ihnat said only 38 missiles were shot down, as many were ballistic. Russia claimed it was targeting drone storage sites, as well as defence enterprises and their energy supply.
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