Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said trilateral talks between Ukraine, Russia and the United States, which have concluded in the United Arab Emirates, were “constructive”.
Mr Zelenskiy said further meetings could take place next week after military representatives identified a list of issues for discussion.
The second day of tripartite peace talks came after Russia launched a massive drone and missile attack targeting Ukraine’s two largest cities, Kyiv and Kharkiv, early on Saturday.
With Kyiv and other cities in the midst of widespread outages of heat, water and power following Russian attacks on energy infrastructure, officials in Kyiv said one person had been killed and at least 15 injured in strikes that continued until morning.
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The Russian strikes come in tandem with Russia continuing to insist it must control the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine, underlining doubts that Moscow is serious about peace.
The overnight Russian strike showed agreements on air defence made with US president Donald Trump in Davos, Switzerland, this week must be “fully implemented”, Mr Zelenskiy said on Saturday.
The two leaders met at the World Economic Forum on Thursday and discussed air defence support for Ukraine, although afterwards neither leader specified what was agreed.
Commenting on the overnight attacks, Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said: “Currently, one person is known to have died and four to have been wounded,” he wrote in a social media post, adding that three of the injured had been hospitalised.
Fires broke out in several buildings hit by drone debris while heat and water services in parts of the capital were interrupted, he said.
The strikes come amid a worsening midwinter energy crisis focused on the capital where many have been left without heat and power for a prolonged period.
On Friday Mr Klitschko said that about 1,940 residential buildings in the capital remained without heating after renewed attacks, adding “and this may not be the most difficult moment yet”.
According to his office, 600,000 residents have left the city temporarily during the January power crisis that has left entire blocks across the city in darkness.
Tymur Tkachenko, the head of Kyiv’s military administration, reported strikes in at least four districts. A medical facility was among the buildings damaged.
Kyiv has already endured two mass overnight attacks this year that have knocked out power and heating to hundreds of residential buildings. Emergency workers were still engaged in restoring services to residents, with overnight temperatures dipping to minus 13 degrees.
In Kharkiv, a frequent target 30km (18 miles) from the Russian border, mayor Ihor Terekhov said 25 drones had hit several districts over two-and-a-half hours, with at least 14 people injured.
Writing on Telegram, he said the drones had struck a dormitory for displaced people, a hospital and a maternity hospital.
Hundreds of thousands of people in Ukraine’s Chernihiv region have been left without power after the overnight Russian attack, the regional energy company Chernihivoblenergo said on Saturday.
It said an important energy facility had been damaged near the town of Nizhyn.
The latest attacks occurred after negotiators from Ukraine, Russia and the US completed the first of two days of peace talks aimed at finding a resolution to the nearly four-year-old war. – Guardian/Reuters
