Russia continues assault on Ukrainian cities as second day of talks in Abu Dhabi begins

Delegations from Russia, Ukraine and the US met for a second day of talks in Abu Dhabi, Russian news agency TASS reported on Saturday, as Moscow continued its relentless assault on civilian targets in Ukraine, causing the worst energy crisis Kyiv has faced since the start of the war. 

The three-way meeting at the Al Shati Palace in the UAE capital, which was unexpectedly announced by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky after meeting with US President Donald Trump at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday, was closed to the press.

The delegations include Zelensky’s chief of staff, Kirill Budanov, Ukraine’s chief negotiator and secretary of the National Security and Defence Council, Rustem Umerov, United States Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Igor Kostyukov, the head of the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency.

There were no signs that any compromise had been reached on the first day of talks in Abu Dhabi on Friday, Reuters reported, with any prospect that Russia was serious about ending the war dashed by its overnight onslaught on Kyiv and Kharkiv.

Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said in the early hours of Saturday that one person had been killed in Russian airstrikes on the Ukrainian capital, while four more people were injured, three of whom were hospitalised. 

Districts on Kyiv’s left bank were continuing to experience problems with heating and water supply, Klitschko added, with drone wreckage damaging residential buildings, an office building, and a medical facility. A further four people were injured in the Kyiv region, the regional authorities reported early Saturday. 

At least 31 people were also injured in a two-and-a-half hour series of drone strikes on eastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on Saturday, adding that a hostel for internally displaced people and two hospitals had also been damaged.