Russia continues to pummel Ukraine’s energy infrastructure as US and Ukraine hold ‘marathon’ talks in Miami

Russia has once again targeted energy infrastructure across Ukraine in a mass overnight attack, hitting multiple substations in several Ukrainian regions, local authorities have reported.

According to Ukraine’s Air Force, Russia launched 653 attack drones, 17 ballistic missiles and 34 cruise missiles. Despite the Ukraine’s air defences shooting down 585 attack drones, 29 cruise missiles and one ballistic missile, 60 strikes were recorded at 29 locations across the country.

The Ukrainian Energy Ministry reported that the strikes had caused power outages in at least eight Ukrainian regions, including the Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa and Kharkiv regions.

Ukraine’s largest private energy company, DTEK, said on X on Saturday that Russian strikes had seriously damaged its power generation equipment. The company described this as the sixth massive strike on Ukrainian thermal power stations since October.

DTEK’s CEO, Maxim Timchenko, has called on Ukraine’s allies to “urgently send equipment and materials” to rebuild Ukraine’s power stations, as well as air defence equipment to protect against Russian attacks, which he has described as acts of terrorism.

The attack comes amid increased pressure on Ukraine to accept a peace deal devised by Moscow and Washington, which would require Kyiv to make serious territorial concessions. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned Ukrainian citizens in November that the country faced  “a difficult choice”, whether to accept the latest US peace plan or face “a very tough winter”.

Despite the original 28-point peace plan being amended in recent weeks, the positions of Kyiv and Moscow appear irreconcilable, as talks between Vladimir Putin and US officials in the Kremlin on Tuesday yielded no tangible results. Putin did not hide his “critical, even negative” attitude to a “number of proposals”, Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov said on Tuesday, though he did not specify what these were.

Meanwhile, a Ukrainian delegation led by national security adviser Rustem Umerov and Ukrainian military chief of staff Andrii Hnatov held “marathon” negotiations with Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner on Thursday and Friday, with the talks expected to resume on Saturday, according to Axios.

“Both parties agreed that real progress toward any agreement depends on Russia’s readiness to show serious commitment to long-term peace, including steps toward de-escalation and cessation of killings,” the US State Department said in a statement following the negotiations on Friday. However, neither side has announced any concrete agreements reached during the talks.