{"id":250634,"date":"2026-01-25T04:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T04:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/250634\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T04:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T04:54:10","slug":"ukraine-war-briefing-kyiv-and-moscow-set-to-hold-more-face-to-face-talks-as-us-hails-big-step-forward-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/250634\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine war briefing: Kyiv and Moscow set to hold more face-to-face talks as US hails \u2018big step\u2019 forward | Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ukraine and Russia have agreed to hold a second round of US-brokered direct peace talks next weekend after a two-day meeting in Abu Dhabi, despite Ukrainian complaints that negotiations were undermined by a barrage of deadly strikes. The trilateral talks in the UAE would resume on 1 February, a US official said on Saturday, adding: \u201cI think getting everyone together was a big step. I think it\u2019s a confirmation of the fact that, number one, a lot of progress has been made to date in really defining the details needed to get to a conclusion.\u201d The talks were the first known direct contact between Ukrainian and Russian officials on a plan being pushed by Donald Trump to end the nearly four-year war. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said \u201ca lot was discussed, and it is important that the conversations were constructive\u201d.<\/p>\n

Russia was criticised for launching drone and missile attacks on Kyiv and Kharkiv \u2013 Ukraine\u2019s two largest cities \u2013 during peace talks in Abu Dhabi, reported Peter Beaumont<\/a>. \u201cPeace efforts? Trilateral meeting in the UAE? Diplomacy? For Ukrainians, this was another night of Russian terror,\u201d the country\u2019s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, said after the latest Russian assault on critical infrastructure. With Kyiv and other cities in the midst of widespread outages of heat, water and power after Russian attacks on energy infrastructure, officials in the capital said one person had been killed and at least 15 injured in the strikes that continued until morning.<\/p>\n

US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff spoke to Russian president Vladimir Putin for four hours in Moscow ahead of the trilateral peace talks, a US official said. They \u201cmet for just about four hours, and again, [a] very, very productive discussion, speaking about the final issues that are open\u201d, the official told a media call on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The governor of the Russian border region of Belgorod said Ukrainian forces had launched a \u201cmassive\u201d attack on the region\u2019s main town, damaging energy infrastructure but causing no casualties. Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram on Saturday that a building in the town \u2013 also called Belgorod \u2013 had been set on fire and an emergency crew was tackling the blaze. A downed drone had also damaged homes in a nearby village, he said.<\/p>\n

The Russian defence ministry said on Saturday its forces had completed the takeover of the village of Starytsya in Ukraine\u2019s north-eastern Kharkiv region. The village is near the town of Vovchansk, close to the Ukraine-Russia border, where Russian forces launched an incursion in May 2024, and Moscow\u2019s troops have been trying to extend their gains despite Ukrainian resistance. The Ukrainian military\u2019s general staff said late on Saturday that Russian forces had launched six attacks on an area including Starytsya. It made no acknowledgement that the village had changed hands. Ukraine\u2019s DeepState military blog made no mention of the village in a report on Friday but said Russian forces \u201care continuing their pressure in the Vovchansk area\u201d. The battlefield reports could not be independently verified.<\/p>\n

An intercepted oil tanker suspected of belonging to Russia\u2019s shadow fleet headed on Saturday to a port in southern France for police to inspect, French authorities said. The tanker, the Grinch, was intercepted on Thursday morning in international waters between Spain and North Africa, French president Emmanuel Macron said on X. French prosecutors suspect it of belonging to the network of vessels Moscow is accused of using to dodge sanctions imposed over its invasion of Ukraine. The tanker would be anchored at Fos-sur-Mere near Marseille and kept at the disposal of the Marseille public prosecutor as part of a preliminary investigation for failure to fly a flag, the regional maritime prefecture said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ukraine and Russia have agreed to hold a second round of US-brokered direct peace talks next weekend after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-250634","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}