Ukraine war live: Zelenskyy to meet Trump in Florida for peace talks after Russia intensifies strikes | Ukraine

Russian forces struck an energy facility in the Poltava region, damaging technological equipment, Volodymyr Kogut, the head of the Poltava administration, wrote in a post on Telegram this morning, which detailed two recent Russian attacks. The post read:

Yesterday, during the day, the enemy attacked Poltava region twice. A missile was recorded falling in an open area in the Myrhorod district.

The Russians also struck an energy facility. Technological equipment was damaged. Energy workers are working to eliminate the consequences of the attack. Fortunately, in both cases, no people were injured.

We have not been able to independently verify this information yet.

The Ukrainian military said on Sunday that it hit the Syzran oil refinery in Russia’s Samara region in an overnight drone attack.

The strike caused a fire and damages were still being assessed, Kyiv’s General Staff said.

Since August, Ukraine has intensified strikes on Russia’s oil refineries and other key energy infrastructure as Kyiv tries to reduce Moscow’s oil revenues, a vital source of funding for the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion, launched in February 2022.

Zelenskyy has offered to drop Ukraine’s ambition to join Nato in an attempt to show his willingness to reach an agreement.

In return, the Ukrainian leader and his European allies have been pushing for “article-5-like” security guarantees from Europe and the US, referring to Nato’s founding principle that an attack on one member country should be considered as an attack on all. It remains unclear whether Moscow would accept such terms.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has voiced optimism about the new draft of the plan to end the war, telling reporters on Friday that it was 90% complete: “Our task is to make sure everything is 100% ready,” he said.

The plan is considered an updated version of an earlier 28-point document agreed several weeks ago between the US envoys and Russian officials, a proposal widely viewed as favourable to Moscow.

Ukraine opposes conceding any land Russian forces do not currently occupy and is seeking robust security guarantees from the US.

In an interview with Politico last week, the US president, Donald Trump, said he anticipated a “good” meeting with the Ukrainian leader, though he offered no endorsement of Zelenskyy’s plan. “He doesn’t have anything until I approve it,” Trump said. “So we’ll see what he’s got.” The president’s comments underscore how tense the relationship is between the two leaders.

The White House has increased pressure on Kyiv to sign up to a peace deal, with Trump at times seeming to lean in favour of Russia, which has stuck to its maximalist positions throughout intensive negotiations.

After hosting Zelenskyy at the White House in October, Trump demanded that both Russia and Ukraine halt fighting and “stop at the battle line,” implying that Moscow should be able to keep the territory it has seized from Ukraine.

Before Sunday’s meeting, Zelenskyy said the key issues that remain unresolved include questions surrounding territory, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and funding for Ukraine’s postwar recovery. He said there also are technical matters related to security guarantees and monitoring mechanisms to be discussed.

Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies Nabu and Sapo raided national parliament offices in Kyiv on Saturday as investigators alleged some MPs were implicated in a new graft probe.

A statement from Nabu, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, accused State Security Department guards of “resisting Nabu officers during investigative actions in committees of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine”. The anti-corruption agency did not reveal details of the investigation, but said suspects took bribes for votes.

Ukraine’s State Security Department said the anti-corruption detectives were stopped at first by security but later allowed in. An earlier corruption investigation has led to the resignation of the chief of staff to the president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. It involved an alleged $100m kickback scheme in the battered energy sector, allegedly masterminded by a personal friend of the president.

Russia claims to have captured several settlements in Ukraine

There has been a significant clean-up operation in Kyiv in the aftermath of the Russian attacks on Saturday, which killed at least one person and injured at least 32 others, including two children, according to officials.

Rescue workers from the State Emergency Service have now completed work to “eliminate the consequences” of the drone and missile strikes, which officials said targeted energy facilities and civilian infrastructure, according to an update from the Main Department of the State Emergency Service in Kyiv.

Rescue workers have cleared rubble and inspected damaged buildings, it said. Over 400 rescuers were involved in the work, which was done with help from volunteer organisations and local municipal services.

Ukraine’s leading private energy provider said on Sunday it had restored power to nearly 750,000 households in Kyiv after a Russian drone and missile barrage killed at least one person and left hundreds of thousands of people facing freezing temperatures.

DTEK said consumers on Kyiv’s right bank were back to planned power cuts but that the situation remained “more difficult” on the left bank, where emergency outages were still in force.

Three civilians injured in Russian strikes in Kharkiv region, police say

Zelenskyy to meet Trump in Florida for talks on plan to end the war as new attacks reported in Ukraine