Ukraine and Russia are potentially in the early stages of talks about stopping airstrikes on each other’s energy facilities, the Financial Times reported, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter.
The FT, citing sources late on Tuesday that included senior Ukrainian officials, reported that Ukraine wants to restart talks that came close to an agreement in August and were brokered by Qatar.
Sources told the FT that the talks were derailed after Kiev’s military began an offensive in Russia’s Kursk region bordering Ukraine that month.
“There are very early conversations going on about potentially re-introducing some,” the FT quoted a diplomat as saying. The newspaper said it had been briefed about the conversations. “Negotiations are now underway on energy facilities.”
Reuters could not independently verify the report. The Kremlin, the Russian Defense Ministry, the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukrainian Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
The FT said the Kremlin declined to comment and Zelensky’s office did not respond to its requests for comment.
A large portion of Ukraine’s electricity capacity has been destroyed or seized due to Russian attacks on energy infrastructure since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of its smaller neighbor in 2022, allowing Kiev to destroy its nuclear power facilities and It has been forced to depend on energy imports from Europe.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said last month that Russia had destroyed gigawatts equivalent to more than half of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. The EU aims to restore 2.5 gigawatts of capacity, about 15% of the country’s needs, he said, referring to proposed repairs funded by the European Union.
Ukraine had no powerful long-range weapons at the start of the war, but has since developed long-range attack drones and used them to attack targets inside Russia, from oil refineries to power plants and military airfields. Have to do.
Zelensky told the FT in early October that an agreement to protect energy facilities could signal Russian willingness to engage in broader peace talks. Moscow says it wants peace, but has put forward conditions that Kiev considers unacceptable.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
