(AP) — A Ukrainian drone strike ignited fires at one of Russia’s Black Sea ports, officials said Sunday, ahead of fresh talks aimed at ending the nearly 4-year-old war.
Two people were wounded in the attack on the port of Taman in the Krasnodar region, which damaged an oil storage tank, warehouse and terminals, according to regional Gov. Veniamin Kondratyev.
Meanwhile, falling debris from Russian drones damaged civilian and transport infrastructure in Ukraine’s Odesa region, officials said, causing disruption to the power and water supply.
Ukraine’s long-range drone strikes on Russian energy sites aim to deprive Moscow of the oil export revenue it needs to pursue its full-scale invasion. Russia wants to cripple the Ukrainian power grid, seeking to deny civilians access to heat, light and running water in what Kyiv officials say is an attempt to “weaponize winter.”
The attacks came ahead of another round of U.S.-brokered talks between envoys from Russia and Ukraine on Tuesday and Wednesday in Geneva, just before the fourth anniversary of the all-out Russian invasion of its neighbor on Feb. 22.
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy suggested there were still questions remaining over future security guarantees for his country. Zelenskyy also questioned how the concept of a free trade zone – proposed by the U.S. – would work in the Donbas region, which Russia insists Kyiv must give up for peace.
He said the Americans want peace as quickly as possible and that the U.S. team wants to sign all the agreements on Ukraine at the same time, whereas Ukraine wants guarantees for the country’s future security signed first.
Zelenskyy’s concerns were echoed by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a ranking member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“Unless we have real security guarantees on whatever peace agreement is ultimately determined, we are going to be here again, because one of the things we know is that Russia has geared up not just for Ukraine, but to go beyond Ukraine,” she told reporters in Munich on Sunday.
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Russia was hoping to win diplomatically what it had failed to achieve on the battlefield, and was banking on the U.S. to deliver concessions at the negotiating table. But Kallas told the Munich conference Sunday that key Russian demands – including the lifting of sanctions and unfreezing of assets – were decisions for Europe.
“If we want a sustainable peace then we need concessions also from the Russian side,” she said.
Previous U.S.-led efforts to find consensus on ending the war, most recently two rounds of talks in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, have failed to resolve difficult issues, such as the future of Ukraine’s Donbas industrial heartland that is largely occupied by Russian forces.
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