Ukraine-Russia war latest: Kyiv, Moscow and US set for first trilateral talks after Putin meets Trump envoys – UK Times

Volodymyr Zelensky has revealed that delegations from the US, Russia and Ukraine will all meet in the United Arab Emirates this weekend.

It would be the first trilateral meeting between the three countries to end the ongoing war, he says. Previous talks between Moscow and Kyiv delegations last year were mediated by Turkey.

The meetings will take place on Friday and Saturday, Zelensky adds.

“I think this is good, on the technical level we will begin these trilateral meetings. Russians have to be ready for compromises, everybody has to be ready, not just Ukraine,” he says.

“We will see what the result will be.”

Taiwan president Lai Ching-te on Friday offered to hold talks with Ukraine to step up efforts against sanctions evasion, after Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky named the island as a source of illicit missile components used by Russia.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Taiwan – a global semiconductor powerhouse – has repeatedly tightened export controls to prevent high-tech goods from being used for military purposes and has joined wide-ranging Western-led sanctions against Moscow.

Speaking in Davos on Thursday, Zelensky said Russia would be unable to produce missiles without “critical components sourced from China, Europe, the United States and Taiwan”.

Responding in English on X, Lai said Taiwan had long worked with international partners to “staunchly support Ukraine through humanitarian aid and coordinated sanctions”.

“We welcome further exchanges of information with President @ZelenskyyUa to further clamp down on illegal third-country transshipment and concealed end use,” Lai said, posting a photograph of orchids in the blue and yellow colours of Ukraine’s flag.

Lai added that “young Taiwanese have sacrificed their lives to defend freedom in Ukraine”, referring to volunteer fighters who have died while fighting against Russia.

“We remain clear: any assistance to the aggressor or violations of international embargoes and export control regulations are unacceptable. We pray for peace to be restored to Ukraine soon,” he said.

Speaking to reporters in Taipei later on Friday, Lai said he welcomed any information from Zelensky on sanctions busting.

“We are willing to strengthen controls on goods routed through third countries while concealing their final destination, to prevent them from entering Russia and to protect Ukraine,” he added.

Ukraine endured what officials described as its most punishing day for the energy system since the first year of Russia’s full-scale invasion on Thursday.

It comes as a deepening power crisis left large parts of the country without heat, electricity and water in sub-zero temperatures.

Energy minister Denys Shmyhal said the humanitarian emergency was the result of sustained and deliberate Russian strikes on critical energy infrastructure – a strategy Moscow has pursued every winter since 2022.

“Today in Ukraine was the most difficult day for the energy system since the blackout in November 2022,” Shmyhal wrote on Telegram.

He said the attacks had damaged power generation equipment and crippled distribution networks and transformers, forcing rolling emergency shutdowns.

The situation, he said, was “extremely serious”, with Kyiv, the surrounding Kyiv region and Dnipropetrovsk among the worst affected.

Kyiv’s energy system remains under severe strain following large-scale Russian strikes on 9 January and January 20, with president Volodymyr Zelensky declaring a state of emergency in the energy sector on 14 January, in the midst of the attacks.

European countries, which see their own future defence at stake in Russia’s war in Ukraine on its eastern flank, have provided financial, military and humanitarian support for Kyiv, but not all members of the 27-nation European Union are helping.

Ukraine also has been frustrated by political disagreements within Europe over how to deal with Russia, as well as the bloc’s at times slow-moving responses.

Russia’s bigger army has managed to capture about 20 per cent of Ukraine since hostilities began in 2014 and its full-scale invasion of 2022.

But the battlefield gains along the roughly 600-mile front line have been costly for Moscow, and the Russian economy is feeling the consequences of the war and international sanctions.

Ukraine is short of money and, despite significantly boosting its own arms manufacturing, still needs Western weaponry. It is also short-handed on the front line. Its defence minister last week reported some 200,000 troop desertions and draft-dodging by about two million Ukrainians.

Vladimir Putin pulled an all-nighter, sitting down with US envoys for a meeting that stretched on for nearly four hours.

The US delegation included US special envoy Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, who last met Putin in the Kremlin in early December and Josh Gruenbaum, newly appointed as a senior adviser to Trump’s Board of Peace, tasked with addressing global conflicts.

Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov says Putin has underlined that Russia was “sincerely interested” in a diplomatic solution.

But he stressed that there was no hope of achieving long-term settlement without resolving the territorial issue according to the formula agreed upon in Anchorage.

He added: “Until this is achieved, Russia will continue to consistently pursue the objectives of the special military operation. This is especially true on the battlefield, where the Russian armed forces hold the strategic initiative.”

This significant development was announced by the newly appointed Defence Minister, Mykhailo Fedorov.

Mr Fedorov, who recently transitioned from his role as digitalisation minister to spearhead reforms across Ukraine’s vast defence ministry and armed forces, has described Kyiv’s wartime data trove as a crucial “card” in its ongoing negotiations with other nations.

Ahead of three-way security talks in Abu Dhabi, Vladimir Putin and three US envoys held a meeting that began shortly before midnight and lasted nearly four hours.

Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters the talks had been useful and extremely frank.

However, it ended without any breakthrough.

He said Russian Admiral Igor Kostyukov would head Moscow’s team at the three-way security talks, and investment envoy Kirill Dmitriev would meet separately on economic issues with Steve Witkoff, the envoy of President Donald Trump.

But while outlining the next steps, Ushakov stopped short of hailing any major breakthrough.

“Most importantly, during these talks between our president and the Americans, it was reiterated that without resolving the territorial issue according to the formula agreed upon in Anchorage, there is no hope of achieving a long-term settlement,” he said, referring to last year’s Trump-Putin summit in Alaska.

Ushakov said Putin underlined that Russia was “sincerely interested” in a diplomatic solution.

He added, however: “Until this is achieved, Russia will continue to consistently pursue the objectives of the special military operation. This is especially true on the battlefield, where the Russian armed forces hold the strategic initiative.”

Putin, Ushakov and Dmitriev took part in the talks on the Russian side.

On the US side, Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who last met Putin in the Kremlin in early December, were accompanied by Josh Gruenbaum, newly appointed by Trump as a senior adviser to his Board of Peace, which will seek to tackle world conflicts.