Volodymyr Zelensky prepares for a crunch peace meeting with US president Donald Trump on Sunday as Vladimir Putin continues to apply pressure with a huge bombardment which killed two and injured dozens.
Russia launched almost 500 drones and 40 missiles targeting Kyiv and regions in the North East and the South overnight on Friday. It was the second brutal air strike on Ukraine in less than a week, after Moscow launched 587 drones and 34 missiles on Tuesday.
A third of the capital city was left without heat in sub-zero weather conditions as the attack continued throughout Saturday morning, and a nearly ten-hour air raid alert for the capital only ended at 11.20am (9.20am GMT).
Authorities said two people were killed in Kyiv and the surrounding region, while at least 46 people were wounded, including two children.
The intense bombardments come after Mr Zelensky said that the 20-point plan draft was 90 per cent complete ahead of his meeting with President Trump on Sunday.
The Ukrainian leader told reporters on Saturday afternoon that he was en route to his US counterpart’s Florida residence Mar-a-Lago, making a stop in Canada on the way to meet his close ally, prime minister Mark Carney.
Security guarantees and territorial issues in Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia are set to dominate discussions, as they remain key sticking points in ending the war. Mr Zelensky said the country has its “red lines”, but he remained certain a compromise could be found.
President Zelensky said, shortly before boarding the plane to the US, that the massive bombardment spoke volumes about Mr Putin’s “true attitude” towards peace.
“There have been many questions over the past few days – so where is Russia’s response to the proposals to end the war offered by the United States and the world? Russian representatives engage in lengthy talks, but in reality, Kinzhals and ‘shaheds’ [drones] speak for them,” he wrote in a post on X.
“This is the true attitude of Putin and his inner circle. They do not want to end the war and seek to use every opportunity to cause Ukraine even greater suffering and increase their pressure on others around the world. And this means that the pressure in response is still insufficient.”
Moscow has demanded that Ukraine withdraws from a large, densely urbanised chunk of the eastern region of Donetsk that Russian troops have failed to capture. Kyiv wants the fighting to stop at the current lines. A US compromise hopes to create a free economic zone if Ukraine’s troops pull back from parts of Donetsk, although details remain a grey area.
Mr Zelensky has said the shape of US security guarantees is crucial to peace, and these would depend on what Mr Trump is “ready to give, when he is ready to give it, and for how long”.
He told Axios earlier this week that the US had offered a 15-year deal on security guarantees, subject to renewal, but Kyiv wanted a longer agreement with legally binding provisions to guard against further Russian aggression.
If unable to push the US to support Ukraine’s position in terms of land, Mr Zelensky has said he is willing to put the 20-point plan to a referendum. In order to allow for the democratic process, Russia would need to agree to a 60-day ceasefire to allow Ukraine to prepare for and hold the vote.
Mr Trump said the US was the driving force behind the process, but that he believed Sunday’s meeting would go well.
“He doesn’t have anything until I approve it,” The US president told Politico. “So we’ll see what he’s got.”
He also said he expected to speak with Mr Putin “soon, as much as I want”.
