PARIS (AP) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday at the Elysée presidential palace in Paris, part of a flurry of diplomatic activity aimed at brokering the terms for a potential ceasefire in the nearly four-year-old war in Ukraine.
Zelenskyy’s visit to Paris followed a meeting between Ukrainian and U.S. officials in Florida on Sunday, which Secretary of State Marco Rubio described as productive. The two sides have worked to make revisions to a proposed U.S.-authored plan that was developed in negotiations between Washington and Moscow but criticized as being too weighted toward Russian demands.
Those criticisms were perhaps most vehement from Ukraine’s European allies who, while welcoming U.S. peace efforts, pushed back on key tenets of the plan. Ahead of his meeting with Zelenskyy on Monday, Macron´s office said the two leaders would discuss conditions for a “fair and lasting peace.”
U.S. President Donald Trump has since downplayed the 28-point peace framework, which would have imposed limits on the size of Ukraine´s military, blocked the country from joining NATO and required Ukraine to give up territory, as a “concept” to be “fine-tuned.”
Last week, Macron – a key ally for Ukraine who has firmly backed Kyiv and sought to counterbalance elements of the U.S. peace plan that are seen to favor Russia – urged Western allies to bring “rock-solid” guarantees to Ukraine in case a ceasefire or a peace deal was to be reached. He has endorsed deploying a “reassurance force” on land, at sea and in the air to help ensure the country´s security.
Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin would meet with U.S. presidential envoy Steve Witkoff on Tuesday afternoon. Witkoff´s role in the peace efforts came under scrutiny last week following a report that he coached Putin´s foreign affairs adviser on how Russia´s leader should pitch Trump on the Ukraine peace plan. Both Moscow and Washington downplayed the significance of the revelations.
Peskov on Monday condemned Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil infrastructure over the weekend, including an attack on an oil terminal owned by the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, CPC, and another that targeted two tankers in Turkish waters.
A major oil terminal near the port of Novorossiysk halted operations Saturday after a strike by unmanned boats damaged one of its three mooring points, according to a statement from CPC, which owns the terminal. This came a day after Ukrainian naval drones struck two oil tankers in the Black Sea that were reported to be part of Russia´s “shadow fleet” that evade sanctions.
Ukraine confirmed on Saturday it carried out the attacks.
Peskov described both incidents as “outrageous.”
“Such attacks by Ukrainian drones on critical infrastructure facilities are an ongoing practice,” Peskov said, discussing the CPC terminal strike. “It´s outrageous, because we´re talking about an international facility.”
Meanwhile, Russia´s Ministry of Defense said Russian forces had destroyed 32 Ukrainian drones overnight. The drones were shot down over 11 Russian regions, as well as the Sea of Azov, the ministry said.
An apartment block was damaged during a Ukrainian attack on the city of Kaspiysk in Russia´s Dagestan region, local Gov. Sergei Melikov said. Located on the shore of the Caspian Sea, close to Russia´s border with Azerbaijan, the city is more than 1000 kilometers (620 miles) from the front line.
A Russian missile strike around midday on Monday killed four people and wounded 40 others, 11 in critical condition, in the eastern city of Dnipro, according to the head of regional administration Vladyslav Haivanenko.
The strike hit the city center, damaging four residential high-rises, an educational facility and the storage facility of a humanitarian organization, said Dnipro’s mayor, Borys Filatov, adding that search and rescue operations were ongoing.
Ukraine´s Air Force said Russia had fired 89 strike and decoy drones overnight Sunday before the attack on Dnipro, of which 63 drones were shot down or jammed.
Overall in November, Russia fired 100 missiles of various types and 9,588 reconnaissance and strike drones into Ukraine, according to the Air Force´s monthly report published Monday.
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