Ukraine Awaits New Round Of Trilateral Talks As Deadly Russian Attacks Mount
by RFE/RL · Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty · JoinUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a new round of trilateral talks with Moscow and Washington is set for February 4-5 in the United Arab Emirates, with the expected gathering coming after another round of deadly Russian air strikes on civilian sites.
In his nightly video address on February 1, Zelenskyy said there is "an arrangement to hold a trilateral meeting at an appropriate level...on Wednesday and Thursday [February 4-5] in the United Arab Emirates, as last time."
There had been uncertainty about the talks, which originally were scheduled to take place in the UAE capital on February 1. Zelenskyy on January 31 said his team was ready for such negotiations but that he was awaiting word from the United States.
"I have scheduled a meeting for [February 2] with Rustem Umerov," Zelenskyy said, referring to Kyiv's main negotiator.
The Ukrainian leaders aim "to agree on the framework of the [Abu Dhabi] talks and prepare everything. On the evening of [February 2], the team will already be en route to the negotiations."
"February will be a period of quite intense foreign policy activity on our part, with contacts and meetings beginning tomorrow," Zelenskyy added.
"We expect that the American side will be just as active, and in particular this applies to de-escalation measures -- reducing strikes. And much depends on what the American side will succeed in, so that people trust both the process and the results, of course," he added.
Russia has confirmed that a new round of talks will begin on February 4 after being postponed from this weekend due to what Moscow described as a scheduling issue.
"They were indeed originally planned for this past Sunday. But additional coordination of the schedules of the three parties was needed," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
"Now, on Wednesday-Thursday, the second round will indeed take place. It will be held in Abu Dhabi. We can confirm that," he added.
Follow-Up Talks
Direct negotiations involving Moscow and Kyiv, along with US representatives, resumed in Abu Dhabi on January 23-24. Meetings between Ukrainian and Russian negotiators have been rare since the Kremlin's full-scale invasion of February 2022.
On January 30, US special envoy Steve Witkoff met Kremlin negotiator Kirill Dmitriev in Miami for what he described as "productive and constructive meetings."
Witkoff said US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, and government adviser Josh Gruenbaum also participated in the Florida talks.
However, despite what US officials saw as a positive dynamic in renewed diplomatic efforts, Russian air strikes continued to pound civilian infrastructure and logistics across Ukraine, as temperatures in the country dropped to as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius.
Ukrainian officials reported on February 1 that two separate drone strikes killed at least 14 people in Ukraine's southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region, injuring at least seven others.
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Twelve people were killed when a Russian drone struck near a bus in the Pavlohrad area, while two more died after a drone hit a private house in the region's capital, Dnipro, earlier in the day.
DTEK, Ukraine's largest private utilities company, which owned the bus, added that those killed in the Pavlohrad area were miners returning from their shift.
Details of attacks cannot immediately be independently verified.
The regional authorities declared February 2 a day of mourning for the mine workers who died as a result of the strike.
Maternity Hospital Blasted
Separately, there were ongoing air raids in the neighboring city of Zaporizhzhya, which began shortly after midnight. Regional Governor Ivan Fedorov said that at least six people were injured in the attack on a maternity hospital.
Fedorov added that two of the injured women were undergoing medical examinations at the time of impact. In a Telegram post showing the aftermath, he described the strike as "yet more proof of a war directed against life."
He later added that a secondary attack on the city, which lies less than 50 kilometers from the country's southern front line, injured three more people in another neighborhood. The regional governor said that a small boy was among them.
Russian forces attacked Ukraine with an Iskander-M ballistic missile and 171 drones overnight, Ukrainian Air Forces reported on February 2.
A massive Russian strike with at least 15 drones in central Cherkasy injured four people, according to Ihor Taburets, head of regional military administration.
Ukrenergo, Ukraine's national electricity company, said in a February 2 statement that Russian attacks on energy infrastructure caused power outages in Sumy, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Cherkasy regions. The statement added that, wherever security conditions permitted, emergency restoration work was underway.
Emergency power outages were also imposed in Kyiv and the Kyiv region, while 244 buildings remain without heating in the capital according to Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko, as temperatures are expected to drop up to minus 30 degrees Celsius in some regions.
The continuation of attacks came after Trump on January 29 said Russian President Vladimir Putin had personally promised him to pause air strikes on the capital and other "various towns" for a week.
Katarina Mathernova, the EU ambassador to Ukraine, blasted the Kremlin's latest actions in a Facebook posting.
"Is this what a 'cease-fire' is supposed to look like?" she said. "Like explosions.
Like dead civilians. Like destroyed energy and transport infrastructure."
"All of this is happening at a time when the world is talking about a potential cease-fire," she added.
A nationwide survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) found that 88 percent of Ukrainians believe Russia's strikes on the energy sector are aimed at leaving Ukrainians without electricity and heating and forcing Ukraine to capitulate.
At the same time, 3 percent of respondents believe that Russia is only striking in response and that Ukraine itself is to blame, and another 3 percent believe that Russia is targeting only military facilities.
Meanwhile, Russian officials reported on February 2 that a Ukrainian drone strike hit Russia's Belgorod border region, killing two civilians, and another drone strike injured a civilian in the Bryansk region.
Russia's Defense Ministry said its air defenses destroyed or intercepted 31 Ukrainian drones, including 22 over Belgorod.
Ukraine Awaits New Round Of Trilateral Talks As Deadly Russian Attacks Mount
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