Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy sees ‘window of opportunity’ for peace as US envoys to meet Putin

Volodymyr Zelenskyy said there could be a chance to reach a breakthrough this year in negotiations to end the war, as he arrived in Ireland ahead of talks with US envoys on Thursday. “Today there really is this opportunity, this window of opportunity, when all those participants who are now engaged in the negotiation process, genuinely want to achieve a result before 2027,” the Ukrainian president said. He is to meet the US presidential envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, after they return from a meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin in Moscow. “What’s important is that the Americans flew to Putin with specifics,” Zelenskyy said. “I would very much like them to return to Dublin with specifics.”

The comments came after Russia and Ukraine agreed to the “largest prisoner exchange” of the war at their first US-brokered talks since February – but made little progress towards a broader peace agreement, reports Pjotr Sauer. Both sides sent senior delegations to the two-day talks in Abu Dhabi, led by Kushner and Witkoff. A senior member of Ukraine’s delegation said the Russian team had arrived with “very strict directives” but there had been “big progress” on postwar security guarantees for Ukraine and “I think we have good momentum to bring about a solution before the new year”. Kushner said there was no trust between ⁠the two sides but described the talks as “a good ​first step”.

Zelenskyy said Ukraine hoped for concrete results on resolving the war this year but that much depended ⁠on how ​the US approached Moscow. Speaking alongside Irish prime minister Micheál Martin on Wednesday, he said: “We are living through these massive attacks. Of course, we want to get results by ⁠the end of this year, and of course we will be doing everything ​to make that happen. A lot will ‌depend today on the format of the dialogue of the American and Russian ‌sides tomorrow.”

The head of Nato said the Abu Dhabi talks had shown that the US, Ukraine and Europe were “completely aligned and united”, stressing it was now up to Russia to show it would cooperate. “Clearly we have to see that the Russian side is willing to play ball,” Mark Rutte told reporters.

Explosions ⁠were ⁠reportedly heard in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, ⁠in ⁠the ​early ‌hours ‌of Thursday. In the southern Odesa region, three people died and 11 were injured after Russia launched a daytime attack on a market, local authorities said. Residential buildings were damaged, said Oleh Kiper, head of the regional military administration.

A drone attack ⁠caused a fire in the port area of Ust-Luga by the Baltic ⁠Sea in Russia’s ⁠north-west, injuring ​three workers, regional governor Aleksandr Drozdenko said on Wednesday. Ukraine later said ⁠it had launched the attack on the port, triggering a fire and damaging part ⁠of its network of fuel tanks. “According to preliminary ​information, as a result ‌of drone strikes ‌on the port’s oil infrastructure, the tank network suffered ‌the most damage,” Ukraine’s general staff said, adding that five tanks had sustained damage. A power station had also been cut off, Drozdenko said.

Ukraine says it has captured its first Indonesian prisoner of war, amid what it says is a spike in recruitment by Russia from the south-east Asian nation. Kate Lamb reports that the 49-year-old man from Java was taken to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region to take part in a Russian assault but managed to reach Ukrainian-held territory after the group came under drone attack, according to a Ukraine’s state-run I Want to Live project. He was then captured by Ukraine.

A Ukrainian drone strike killed an employee of the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia ⁠nuclear power plant in his home in south-eastern Ukraine, the 15th to be ⁠killed since April, according to the plant’s Russian management on Wednesday.