prepares to meet<\/a> with US President Donald Trump in Florida on Sunday for further talks on how to end Moscow\u2019s nearly four-year war.<\/p>\nZelenskyy said they planned to discuss security guarantees and questions over future territorial control, the main sticking points in the negotiations.<\/p>\n
Analysts say the Russian strikes on Kyiv were aimed at sending a clear message ahead of the Trump-Zelenskyy meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s kind of traditional in the negotiations, since before the invasion, since 2014, whenever we have these kind of meetings, there is an escalated attack. And the point is to put pressure on the meeting,\u201d said Ben Aris, the founder and editor-in-chief of BNE Intelli-News.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd Putin here is underlining the fact that he has the ability to take out power stations just as temperatures fall below zero,\u201d said Aris. The message Putin aimed to send is that if Zelenskyy \u201cdoesn\u2019t succumb to my demands, then I have the ability to black out all of the large cities in Ukraine with these high precision and powerful missiles,\u201d said Aris.<\/p>\n
Before the talks with Trump, Zelenskyy met Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in Halifax on Saturday. The two held a bilateral meeting before attending a joint telephone conversation with European leaders.<\/p>\n
Speaking beside\u2060 the Ukrainian leader, Carney announced \u200ban additional 2.5 billion Canadian dollars \u200d($1.82bn) of economic aid for Ukraine, and said that peace depends on a \u201cwilling Russia\u201d.<\/p>\n
Later, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz issued a statement saying that Zelenskyy had \u201cthe full support\u201d of European leaders and of Canada, before his talks with Trump. They and the leaders of NATO and the European Union said they would work \u201cin close coordination with the US for a just and lasting peace in Ukraine\u201d, Merz added.<\/p>\n
EU chiefs Ursula von der Leyen and Antonio Costa also reaffirmed the bloc\u2019s support for Ukraine.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe welcome all efforts leading to our shared objective \u2013 a just and lasting peace that preserves Ukraine\u2019s sovereignty and territorial integrity,\u201d European Commission President von der Leyen said on X after the call with Zelenskyy and Carney.<\/p>\n
Costa, the president of the European Council, which represents the EU\u2019s 27 member states, echoed her promise to continue backing Ukraine, saying on X: \u201cThe EU\u2019s support for Ukraine will not falter. In war, in peace, in reconstruction.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ukraine \u2018suffering\u2019<\/p>\n
Moscow demands that Ukraine withdraw from the parts of the eastern Donetsk region that Russian troops have failed to occupy during almost four years of war, as it seeks full control of the Donbas, comprising the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.<\/p>\n
Kyiv wants the fighting to be halted at the current lines.<\/p>\n
The US, seeking a compromise, has proposed a free economic zone if Ukraine leaves parts of the Donetsk region. Zelenskyy told US news site Axios on Friday that he would seek a stronger position for Ukraine, but could put the US-backed plan to a referendum if necessary.<\/p>\n
Both Zelenskyy and Trump have expressed optimism about the meeting, with the Ukrainian leader saying that most components of a US-Ukraine agreement had been ironed out and that he hopes to finalise a framework on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot can be decided before the New Year,\u201d Zelenskyy posted on social media on Friday.<\/p>\n
But the attack on Saturday appeared to alter Zelenskyy\u2019s tone. In a post following the aerial barrage, he said that Russia\u2019s leadership \u201cdoes not want to end the war\u201d, and that their drones and missiles speak louder than any \u201clengthy talks\u201d they engaged in.<\/p>\n
Russia\u2019s leadership aims \u201cto use every opportunity to cause Ukraine even greater suffering and increase their pressure on others around the world\u201d, said Zelenskyy.<\/p>\n
The Russian president levied similar criticism.<\/p>\n
According to the Interfax and TASS news agencies, Putin said Russia could see Kyiv was in no hurry to end the conflict by peaceful means. He also threatened\u00a0Russia would accomplish all goals of its \u201cspecial military operation\u201d in Ukraine by force.<\/p>\n
Separately on Saturday, Russian forces \u200creported that they had captured the \u200ctown of Myrnohrad \u2060in Ukraine\u2019s Donetsk region, as well as Huliaipole \u200cin Ukraine\u2019s Zaporizhia region, the Kremlin said on \u200dits Telegram channel.<\/p>\n
Ukraine\u2019s military, however, said in its daily battlefield update that its forces had beaten back Russian attempts to advance in the vicinity of Myrnohrad and Huliaipole<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russia has carried out drone and missile attacks on Ukraine\u2019s capital, Kyiv, on the eve of a key…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":373564,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,1076,3,1206,963,1208,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-373563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-europe","tag-news","tag-russia","tag-russia-ukraine-war","tag-ukraine","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Municipal](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/2025-12-27T084456Z_1289369288_RC2VOIAJXXO1_RTRMADP_3_UKRAINE-CRISIS-ATTACK-KYIV-1766828683.jpg\")
City employees and firefighters work at the site of an apartment building hit during Russian missile and drone attacks in Kyiv, Ukraine [Valentyn Ogirenko\/Reuters]Upcoming peace talks<\/p>\n