Kyiv, Ukraine
Reuters
Ukrainian and US delegations concluded a second day of talks in Florida on finding ways to end the four-year war with Russia, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday.
Russian representatives were not present at the talks, which opened in Florida on Saturday. They were originally expected to attend the negotiations, which were due to take place in Abu Dhabi.
Ukrainian servicemen hit a Russian drone as police officers work at the site of a building hit by a Russian drone strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on 21st March, 2026. PICTURE: Reuters/Stringer
UKRAINE SAYS RUSSIAN ATTACKS KILL FOUR PEOPLE, LEAVE THOUSANDS WITHOUT POWER
Russian attacks killed four people in southeastern Ukraine and left much of the northern region of Chernihiv without power on Saturday, officials said.
Zaporizhzhia Governor Ivan Fedorov said the morning attack on the city killed a man and a woman, and injured six others, including two children.
In the adjacent Dnipropetrovsk region, officials said two people died in an area south-east of the main regional centre, Dnipro. Five people were injured in attacks at multiple places.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in his nightly video address, noted Russian strikes in several regions across eastern and southern Ukraine.
He said power had been cut to parts of Chernihiv region, where Governor Viacheslav Chaus said efforts were under way to fix damage after a drone strike on an energy facility.
The region borders Russia and Belarus. The regional capital, also called Chernihiv, was fully without power, the city administration said.
Power and water supplies were cut to parts of the capital Kyiv after what officials described as an incident on the power grid.
Russia has conducted a bombardment campaign against Ukrainian energy facilities throughout the war, causing regular, hours-long blackouts across the country.
Chernihiv was badly hit by power outages over the winter as Russia carried out its biggest bombing campaign of the four-year war against Ukraine’s electricity grid.
Across the Russian border in Belgorod region, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said Ukrainian forces shelled a public building in the village of Smorodino, killing four people.
Belgorod has come under frequent Ukrainian attack during the war.
– MAX HUNDER, Kyiv, Ukraine/Reuters
The US team is led by special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law.
“It is clear that the US side’s attention at the moment is focused primarily on the situation surrounding Iran and the wider region, but Russia’s war against Ukraine must also be brought to an end,” Zelenskiy said in an evening address.
“There are indications that further [prisoner of war] exchanges may take place, which would indeed be very good news and confirmation that diplomacy is working. We hope this will come to fruition,” he added.
Zelenskiy did not specify whether the talks would continue, when or where they might take place, or in what format.
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Earlier on Sunday he urged allies to keep up sanctions pressure on Russia and called for tougher action against Russia’s so-called shadow fleet of tankers used to avoid sanctions, and for Moscow to be denied oil revenues.
“Russia’s shadow fleet must not feel safe in European waters or anywhere else. Tankers that serve the war budget can and must be stopped and blocked, not just let go,” he added.
Washington has temporarily lifted some sanctions on Russian oil to help cope with supply shortages caused by war in Iran. European countries have not done so.
Peace won through war
A peace plan being promoted by the US would require a presidential election in Ukraine, alongside territorial concessions. Zelenskiy, whose term has already expired, is under renewed pressure from Trump to hold a vote as Washington pushes Kyiv towards a peace deal.
Ukrainian law bars wartime elections, but Zelenskiy has said Ukraine would be ready to hold democratic elections if the US secured a two-month ceasefire to allow time to prepare infrastructure and put security guarantees in place.
Ukraine’s former top general, Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, now ambassador to Britain and seen as a potential presidential candidate, said Ukraine did not need a pause in fighting to vote.
“What Ukraine needs is not time to prepare for and hold elections, but a peace won through war, which will secure a future for our children,” he wrote in an article published on Sunday by Ukrainian outlet NV.