Kremlin calls Ukraine peace talks in UAE ‘constructive’
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The Kremlin has given a positive assessment of the Ukraine-Russia peace talks mediated by the United States in the United Arab Emirates.
“Two days of constructive and at the same time very complex work have been done,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday, according to Russian news agencies.
Peskov said the work will continue.
Delegations from Russia, Ukraine and the United States met in the UAE capital Abu Dhabi on Wednesday and Thursday for a new round of talks aimed at ending Russia’s nearly four-year war in Ukraine.
No tangible results were presented but, parallel to the negotiations, an exchange of more than 300 prisoners of war took place.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday he views the performance of the air force in some parts of the country as “unsatisfactory” and that steps are being taken to improve the response to large-scale Russian drone barrages of civilian areas.
The repeated Russian aerial assaults have in recent months focused on Ukraine’s power grid, causing blackouts and disrupting the heating and water supply for families during a bitterly cold winter.
Further US-brokered meetings between Russian and Ukrainian delegations are planned “in the near future, likely in the United States,” Zelenskiy said.
Zelenskiy said he had discussed with his defence minister and the air force commander what new air defence measures Ukraine needs to counter the Russian barrages.
He did not elaborate on what would be done.
Russia fired 328 drones and seven missiles at Ukraine overnight and in the early morning, the air force said, claiming that air defences shot down 297 drones.
One person was killed and two others were injured in an overnight Russian attack using drones and powerful glide bombs on the central Dnipropetrovsk region, according to the head of the regional military administration Oleksandr Hanzha.
A Russian aerial attack on the southern Zaporizhzhia region during early daylight hours injured eight people and damaged 18 apartment blocks, according to regional military administration head Ivan Fedorov.
A dog shelter in the regional capital was also struck, killing 13 dogs, Zaporizhzhia City Council secretary Rehina Kharchenko said.
Meanwhile, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz expressed scepticism on Friday about possible direct talks between European heads of state or government and Russian President Vladimir Putin on ending the war.
During his trip to Abu Dhabi, Merz recalled a visit to Moscow by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán which, he said, only resulted in “heavy bombardments including a children’s hospital in Kyiv” a few days later.
“I don’t want to hold talks that lead to such results,” Merz said.
The Europeans, he said, would only get involved in the negotiation process – if at all – in co-ordination with each other and with Ukraine and the US, if it would be helpful.
French President Emmanuel Macron had recently spoken in favour of direct talks between European leaders and Putin.
His foreign policy advisor Emmanuel Bonne travelled to Moscow this week.
Merz said the move had been “closely co-ordinated with us. We have been talking about this for some time”.
with AP
DPA
