Talks of peace, reality of drones: Ukraine war’s two-track moment

Talks aimed at ending the war in Ukraine appear to be edging forward at the diplomatic level even as fighting and drone strikes continue to batter cities, ports and infrastructure across the country.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday that a meeting with US President Donald Trump would take place “in the near future”, raising expectations of movement in Washington-led efforts to broker a settlement to the nearly four-year conflict.

“We are not losing a single day. We have agreed on a meeting at the highest level — with President Trump in the near future,” Zelenskyy wrote on X, adding that “a lot can be decided before the New Year”. The statement followed what he described as a “good conversation” with Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner, both of whom have been central to the US administration’s renewed diplomatic push.

That push, however, has so far run up against starkly incompatible positions from Kyiv and Moscow. Zelenskyy has signalled limited flexibility, saying earlier this week that Ukraine could consider withdrawing troops from parts of its eastern industrial heartland if Russia did the same and the territory was converted into a demilitarised zone monitored by international forces. But Russia has given no public indication it is prepared to pull back from land it occupies.

On the contrary, Moscow has continued to insist that Ukraine cede all remaining territory it controls in the Donbas region. Russia already holds most of Luhansk and around 70 per cent of Donetsk, the two provinces that make up the Donbas, and has rejected proposals that fall short of Kyiv’s full withdrawal.

Those demands were underlined by remarks attributed to Russian President Vladimir Putin at a closed-door Kremlin meeting with leading businessmen on 24 December. According to the Kommersant newspaper, Putin suggested Russia might be open to limited territorial swaps outside the Donbas, but made clear that he wanted the entire region. “Donbas is ours,” he was quoted as saying, while noting that a “partial exchange of territories from the Russian side is not ruled out” elsewhere.

Putin also reiterated conditions he first set out last year: that any peace deal must involve Ukraine withdrawing from Donbas as well as the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, and formally abandoning its bid to join NATO. Kyiv has repeatedly rejected those terms.

Zelenskyy said this week that Ukrainian and US negotiators had inched closer to finalising a 20-point framework at talks in Miami, but remained deadlocked over demands to hand over parts of Donbas still under Ukrainian control and over the future of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

According to Kommersant, Putin raised the nuclear facility — Europe’s largest — during his meeting with businessmen, saying that joint Russian–US management was being discussed. He also claimed Washington had expressed interest in crypto mining near the plant and that it could partially supply electricity to Ukraine, though no independent confirmation of those discussions has emerged.

While diplomats talk, the war continues to grind on. Overnight into Friday, Russian drone attacks struck the southern city of Mykolaiv and its suburbs, knocking out power to parts of the city. In the neighbouring Odesa region, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Oleksiy Kuleba said drone strikes damaged civilian infrastructure, causing power cuts, damaging elevators and hitting warehouses.

Three commercial vessels flying the flags of Slovakia, Palau and Liberia were also damaged while in port in the Odesa and Mykolaiv regions, though no casualties were reported.

Further north-west, drones hit rail infrastructure at the Kovel station, about 60 km from the Polish border, damaging a locomotive and a freight car. “Despite Russia’s deliberate terror, Ukraine’s logistics system continues to function,” Kuleba said. Moscow did not comment on the reported strikes.

Ukraine, meanwhile, has stepped up long-range attacks aimed at Russia’s energy sector. On Thursday, Ukrainian forces said they struck the Novoshakhtinsk oil refinery in Russia’s Rostov region using British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles. Ukraine’s General Staff reported multiple explosions and said the target had been hit. The region’s governor, Yuri Slyusar, confirmed a fire at the facility and said a firefighter was injured while tackling the blaze.

Kyiv says such strikes are intended to sap the oil export revenues that help finance Russia’s invasion, just as Moscow continues efforts to cripple Ukraine’s power grid. Ukrainian officials accuse Russia of trying to “weaponise winter” by depriving civilians of heat, light and water.

With agency inputs