“Ukraine and the Russian Federation hold talks on ending energy strikes – FT October 30, 00:08 Share: Russia’s strike on Kryvyi Rih (Photo: Press service of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in Dnipropetrovsk region/Handout via REUTERS) Ukraine and Russia hold preliminary negotiations on ending strikes on each other’s energy infrastructure, sources familiar with the matter report. Financial Time writes about it. It is noted that Kyiv sought”, — write on: ua.news
Russia’s attack on Kryvyi Rih (Photo: Press service of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in Dnipropetrovsk region/Handout via REUTERS)
Ukraine and Russia are conducting preliminary talks on ending strikes on each other’s energy infrastructure, sources familiar with the matter say
Financial Time writes about it.
Kyiv is said to have sought to resume Qatar-brokered talks that came close to a deal in August before being derailed by Ukraine’s incursion near Kursk, the people said, including senior Ukrainian officials.
“There are very early talks about a potential reboot of something. Now there are talks about energy facilities,” said a diplomat familiar with the negotiations.
The FT writes that the deal would mark the most significant de-escalation of the war since Russian dictator Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
This month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi said that the agreement on the protection of energy facilities may indicate Russia’s willingness to participate in broader peace talks.
According to a senior Ukrainian official, Moscow and Kyiv have already reduced the frequency of attacks on each other’s energy infrastructure in recent weeks as part of an agreement reached by their intelligence services.
As winter approaches, Ukraine faces serious challenges due to massive Russian missile strikes that have destroyed almost half of its energy capacity.
Currently, the country relies heavily on its nuclear power capacity and energy imports from European partners.
Both Kyiv and Moscow have previously recognized that ending attacks on the Ukrainian energy grid and Russian oil refining facilities is in their mutual interests.
But Putin is unlikely to agree to a deal until Russian forces push Ukrainian troops out of the Kursk region, where they still control about 600 square kilometers of territory, according to a former senior Kremlin official familiar with the negotiations.
“Until [українці] are trampling the ground in Kursk, Putin will hit Zelensky’s energy infrastructure,” he said.
According to a high-ranking Ukrainian official, Ukraine, despite all this, plans to continue to strike targets, including oil refineries, in order to pressure Russia in negotiations.
Apart from Kyiv’s long-range strike capabilities, which have allowed it to hit energy targets and military facilities in Russia, “we don’t have a lot of leverage to [примусити росіян] to negotiations,” they added.
The invasion of Kursk led Moscow to abandon a previous round of talks in August just as officials began planning a face-to-face meeting in Doha.
Qatar began mediating those talks in June after Zelenskyi held a peace summit in Switzerland to which Russia was not invited.
Putin’s press secretary Dmytro Peskov declined to comment.
Zelenskyi’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Other attempts at a deal have also failed in the past. Four Ukrainian officials told the Financial Times that Kyiv and Moscow reached an agreement last fall “tacit agreement” not to strike each other’s energy facilities.
As a result, Russia refrained that winter from the large-scale attacks it had planned on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in 2022-23, according to two Ukrainian officials and a person in Washington with knowledge of the situation.