According to Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, an agreement to safeguard energy facilities would indicate that Russia is open to holding more extensive peace negotiations.
According to the Financial Times, which cited anonymous sources familiar with the situation, Ukraine and Russia are in the early phases of talks over possibly stopping airstrikes on each other’s energy infrastructure.
According to sources the FT cited late Tuesday, including top Ukrainian officials, Ukraine was looking to resume negotiations that were mediated by Qatar and had nearly reached a deal in August.
The sources informed the FT that Kiev’s military had invaded Russia’s Kursk region, which borders Ukraine, that month, causing the negotiations to fall apart.
“There are very early talks about potentially restarting something,” the FT quoted a diplomat who was reportedly briefed on the negotiations. “There’s now talks on the energy facilities.”
In response to questions over the article, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stated that even in the most credible media, there is a lot of fake news that “has nothing to do with reality.”
Peace negotiations
Requests for response were not immediately answered by the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, the Russian Defense Ministry, or the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Since Moscow’s “special military operation” against its neighbor in 2022, Russian strikes on energy infrastructure have destroyed or captured a significant portion of Ukraine’s power capacity, leaving Kiev to rely on its nuclear power plants and imports of energy from Europe.
Last month, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, declared that Russia had destroyed more than half of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, or gigawatts. She mentioned planned EU-funded repairs and stated that the EU wants to restore 2.5 GW of capacity, or around 15% of the nation’s demands.
At the beginning of the conflict, Ukraine lacked strong long-range weapons. However, it has subsequently created long-range attack drones and deployed them to strike targets deep into Russia, such as military airfields, power stations, and oil refineries.
Earlier in October, Zelenskyy told the FT that a deal to safeguard energy assets might indicate that Russia is open to more extensive peace negotiations. Although Moscow claims to want peace, Kiev finds the terms it has set intolerable.
