Ukraine-Russia war latest: Zelensky says will freeze battle for peace talks amid attack on Russian oil facilities – UK Times

A Russian Black Sea port has come under attack from Ukrainian drones overnight, local officials said.

A loading complex has caught fire at the port in Novorossiysk after a drone attack, local authorities said on Monday. They ⁠said no one was injured, while 130 ‌firefighters ​have been ‌battling ⁠the blaze.

Volodymyr Zelensky said he can freeze the battlefield frontlines as they exist amid the warfare between the Ukrainian and Russian forces as he explained what a ceasefire can look like.

On being asked if would want the lines to be frozen where they are at the moment if a ceasefire was agreed tomorrow, Zelensky said: “Yes. It’s the quickest way”, he told Sky News in an interview yesterday.

“[But] We want to stop the war in a way where the war will not come back.

“It’s not the idea just to freeze, but the quickest way to is to freeze and to move it to a diplomatic setting,” Zelensky said, explaining that freezing alone will not help.

The war-time president denied that it would not entail handing Russia what they want in this moment.

“No, it’s not just to give. To stay where we are means to give the people of Ukraine more possibilities to save their children, and for soldiers to come back. I think this is important for us,” he said.

A Russian attack killed has killed five and injured fourteen in Ukraine’s southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, the regional governor said this morning.

Ivan ‌Fedorov said ‌Russia attacked ⁠the region with air strikes, drones and shelling, damaging ‌infrastructure, residential ​buildings ‌and cars.

British PM Keir Starmer, French president Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Friedrich Merz on Sunday set out five conditions for Russia to meet in any peace deal.

These are: including that Russia must agree to an immediate and complete ceasefire, that the “current line of contact” should be the starting point for negotiations and that there are robust guarantees on Ukraine’s safety. Russian assets will remain frozen until it compensates Ukraine for the war and Europe should get a say in any agreement, the leaders said.

The renewed pressure on Russia comes after it suffered a series of military setbacks in recent months.

Sir Keir Starmer and the leaders of France and Germany have warned of the “urgent need” to ramp up production of defensive weapons against Russia’s hypersonic Oreshnik missiles, after a late-night summit in Downing Street on Sunday.

The renewed pressure on Russia comes after it suffered a series of military setbacks in recent months.

But in a sign of the continued havoc the conflict is wreaking on Ukraine, the talks took place hours after a drone strike struck a storage facility for spent nuclear fuel near the Chernobyl power plant.

The Ukrainian president hosted the Russian billionaire last month and asked him to tell Mr Putin he was prepared to meet, multiple sources told the Financial Times. Any direct meeting between the two would be the first since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022.

It comes as Kyiv hopes to capitalise on a pivotal moment in the war, with Ukraine beginning to regain some leverage on the battlefield in part due to improved long-range strike capabilities.

Prime minister Keir Starmer has said Britain would stand with Ukraine as long as needed and support for the war-hit nation is “ironclad”.

“Our support for Ukraine is ironclad,” Sir Keir wrote. “Ukraine’s security is Europe’s security.”

His remarks came after the PM hosted Volodymyr Zelensky, Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz at Downing Street yesterday and said any European security interests must be safeguarded.

Zelensky said on X that the ‌leaders discussed possible ways to reinvigorate diplomacy and Europe’s role in ⁠this process.

“For Ukraine, it has always been a priority that Europe’s position and voice in the negotiations be strong,” he said.

Russian officials are reporting early morning attacks in Russia and Russia-occupied regions of Crimea and Mariupol with strikes on oil depots and electrical substations under attack.

Preliminary visuals shared on social media by locals showed thick black smoke billowing from the area of the Grushevaya Balka oil depot in the Russian city of Novorossiysk, reported the Kyiv Independent.

The Russian depot is largest oil storage in the Caucasus region, with a reported capacity of 1.2 million tonnes of fuel.

Another oil depot in Simferopol in Crimea was reported on fire by residents, the report added citing Telegram channels in Russia-occupied territory.

Electrical substation fires were also reported in occupied Mariupol as well as the community of Hvardiiske near Simferopol amid the reported strikes, it added.

The leaders of Britain, Germany and France said they supported a proposal ⁠for talks between Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian president Vladimir Putin to try to secure a ceasefire, and Europe would play a role.

In a joint statement, British prime minister Keir Starmer, German chancellor Friedrich Merz and French president Emmanuel Macron commended Zelensky’s call for an end to the war and the proposal for direct dialogue between Ukraine and Russia, with active US and European participation.

The three leaders, who head an informal security alliance called the E3 ⁠that is one of Ukraine’s main sources of international support, were joined ​on ⁠Sunday by Zelensky in Downing Street.

“Leaders commended President Zelensky’s call for an end to the war, negotiated by diplomatic means, as set out in his letter to the president,” Sunday’s joint statement said.

Zelensky said in a post on X ⁠that he also told Sir Keir that Ukraine needed more missiles for air defence systems, just days after he published an open letter ​to Putin ⁠proposing face-to-face talks about ending the war, now in ‌its fifth year.

Zelenskiy’s proposal was rebuffed by the Russian president.