A Russian drone attack on the city of Zaporizhzhia killed at least two people, a Ukrainian official said, ahead of expected U.S.-Ukraine talks.

Zaporizhzhia regional head Ivan Fedorov said a man and a woman were killed and two children wounded when a Russian drone hit a private house on Saturday (March 21, 2026) morning.

The attack came ahead of expected U.S.-Ukraine talks, which Ukrainian state media reported would take place later in the day in Miami.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said late on Thursday (March 19) he had sent an official delegation to the United States in a bid to move forward suspended U.S.-brokered talks on ending Russia’s invasion.

Trilateral talks involving Russia, which have yet to produce any breakthrough on key issues, have been on ice while the Iran war has dominated international attention.

The White House did not confirm any meeting with the Ukrainian delegation.

Zelenskyy said the main tasks in the U.S. will be to ensure that the trilateral talks resume and that Washington continues to allow other NATO countries to purchase American weapons to send to Ukraine.

A senior Kremlin official indicated Friday that a new round of U.S.-mediated negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv will likely take place soon.

“The pause is temporary, we hope it’s temporary regarding the continuation of the trilateral format,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Western European officials have over the past year repeatedly accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of dragging his feet in negotiations while he tries to press his bigger army’s battlefield initiative and capture more Ukrainian land. Russian forces hold nearly 20% of Ukraine.

The latest conflict in the Middle East that began Feb. 28 with Israeli and U.S. strikes on Iran has diverted international attention from Ukraine’s plight.

At the same time, Russia is getting a financial windfall from a temporary U.S. waiver on oil sanctions, while Ukraine is desperately short of cash and still waiting for a 90-billion-euro ($103 billion) loan promised by the European Union.

Peace talks ​between the United ‌States, Russia and ​Ukraine ⁠are on pause amid the Iran war, ‌Izvestia reported on Thursday (March 19, 2026), ‌citing Russian ‌officials.

Izvestia ⁠said the ⁠Kremlin had confirmed the pause and ​that the ‌Iran war could push Kyiv towards compromise.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russian Presidential Envoy Kirill Dmitriev would continue working on investment and economic cooperation, but the trilateral talks were on pause.

“Kirill ‌Dmitriev continues work. ​The trilateral group is ⁠on pause,” Peskov was ⁠quoted as saying by ‌Izvestia.

Russian forces pounded Ukrainian ‌power infrastructure before a new round of peace ​talks, killing three energy workers and ⁠leaving tens of thousands of people without power and heat, officials said on Tuesday (February 17, 2026).

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy condemned the ‌overnight strikes on 12 Ukrainian regions that came under attack hours before the scheduled start ‌of U.S.-backed trilateral talks involving Kyiv and ‌Moscow ⁠in Geneva.

“It was a combined strike, ⁠specially calculated to cause as much damage as possible to our energy sector,” Mr. Zelenskiy wrote on X, calling for diplomacy ​to be backed by “justice ‌and strength.”

Russia, which began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, has frequently carried out attacks on Ukrainian energy facilities this winter that ‌have knocked out power and heating.

Ukraine’s deputy energy ​minister said the three workers were killed when a Russian drone struck their ⁠car near the Sloviansk power plant, in a frontline area which Moscow wants Kyiv to cede in ‌exchange for peace.

Power infrastructure supplying Ukraine’s strategic Black Sea port city of Odesa suffered “incredibly serious” damage, said private energy company DTEK. “Repairs will take a long time to restore the equipment to working order,” the company said on social media.

Deputy ‌Energy Minister Artem Nekrasov said homes in five regions ​had suffered power cuts as a result of the strikes, and also reported disruptions ⁠to heating supply in Odesa and Sumy, a regional ⁠capital in northern Ukraine near the Russian border.

Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched ‌nearly 400 drones and 29 missiles. Most were downed, but 13 targets in Ukraine were hit, ​it added.

Two ⁠sets of diplomatic negotiations, on Ukraine and Iran, are set to ‌take place in Geneva on Tuesday (February 17, 2026), a source ‌briefed on the ‌matter ⁠told Reuters on Friday (February 13, 2026).

A U.S. ⁠delegation including Envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will meet with ​the Iranians ‌on Tuesday (February 17, 2026) morning, the source said. Representatives from Oman will be on hand ‌and mediate the U.S.-Iran contacts, ​the source said.

Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner will then ⁠participate in trilateral talks with representatives from Russia and ‌Ukraine in the afternoon, the source said.

President Donald Trump is pressuring the Iranian government in the wake of its violent crackdown ‌on protesters and has amassed a ​large U.S. naval presence in the region.

He ⁠is also trying to coax ⁠Ukraine and Russia into an agreement to end ‌Moscow’s four-year-old invasion of Ukraine.

A barrage of Russian drones and missiles on Ukraine overnight killed at least four people in cities across the country, including a 10-year-old boy, regional officials said on Monday (February 9, 2026).

AFP journalists at the scene of one strike on the southern city of Odesa saw gutted buildings and fire and emergency services working by lamplight to perform CPR on one of the victims.

The Ukrainian air force said Russia had launched 11 ballistic missiles and 149 drones — including Iranian-designed Shaheds — at the country from Sunday (February 8) evening into the early hours of Monday (February 9).

Air defence units downed more than one hundred drones and several of the missiles, they added without elaborating.

Russia, which invaded Ukraine nearly four years ago, has bombarded its neighbour while joining recent rounds of U.S.-brokered talks to end Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.

Mykhailo, a 32-year-old resident of the port city of Odesa who lives on the fourth floor of a residential building damaged overnight, told AFP that his apartment windows had been blown out and his car was damaged.

“First we heard the buzzing of a Shahed, and then the hit — and then another hit,” the postal worker said.

Seventeen-year-old student, also named Mykhailo, told AFP that when he stepped out onto his balcony, he saw the doorframe had been dislodged by the blast.

Local officials in the city said that a 35-year-old man was killed and that two more were wounded, including a 19-year-old woman.

Farther north in the Kharkiv region, State emergency services said they had recovered the bodies of a woman and a 10-year-old boy after a drone attack.

And a 71-year-old man was killed by Russian drones in his bed in the settlement of Novgorod-Siversky in the northern Chernigiv region, local authorities said.

Though Washington wants to see the war end by mid-year, Kyiv and Moscow remain at odds over territorial divisions, with Russia pushing for full control of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region as part of any deal.

Russia occupies around 20% of Ukraine’s land.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday (January 25, 2026) that a U.S. security guarantees document for Ukraine is “100% ready” after two days of talks involving representatives from Ukraine, the U.S., and Russia.

Speaking to journalists in Vilnius during a visit to Lithuania, Mr. Zelenskyy said Ukraine is waiting for its partners to set a signing date, after which the document would go to the U.S. Congress and Ukrainian parliament for ratification.

Mr. Zelenskyy also emphasized Ukraine’s push for European Union membership by 2027, calling it an “economic security guarantee.”

The Ukrainian leader described the talks in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, as likely the first trilateral format in “quite a long while” that included not only diplomats but military representatives from all three sides. The talks, which began on Friday (January 23) and continued on Saturday (January 24), were the latest aiming to end Russia’s nearly four-year full-scale invasion.

Mr. Zelenskyy acknowledged fundamental differences between Ukrainian and Russian positions, reaffirming territorial issues as a major sticking point.

“Our position regarding our territory — Ukraine’s territorial integrity — must be respected,” he said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed a Ukraine settlement with U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner during marathon talks late on Thursday (January 22). The Kremlin insisted that to reach a peace deal, Kyiv must withdraw its troops from the areas in the east that Russia illegally annexed but has not fully captured.

Mr. Zelenskyy said the U.S. is trying to find a compromise, but that “all sides must be ready for compromise.” Negotiators will return to the UAE on Feb. 1 for the next round of talks, according to a U.S. official. The recent talks covered a broad range of military and economic matters and included the possibility of a ceasefire before a deal, the official said. There was not yet an agreement on a final framework for oversight and operation of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which is occupied by Russia and is the largest in Europe.

U.S. and Ukrainian ‍officials discussed “some ideas” to address the issue ​of territory during peace talks to ‌end Russia’s war on ​Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday (January 6, 2026), describing the matter as the biggest remaining obstacle in the process.

Ukraine is under U.S. pressure to quickly secure a peace deal that could ​include painful concessions, but has ⁠refused to accept Russian demands that it cede land it still controls in eastern Donbas.

“The ​biggest issue that ⁠needs to be worked on is the territorial issue. We discussed some ideas that might help,” Mr. Zelenskyy ‌said in Paris after a ‌meeting with European allies to hash out security guarantees for ‍Kyiv.

“If the teams are unable to resolve certain issues, the matter can ‍be brought to the leaders’ level.”

Separately, White House special envoy Steve Witkoff told reporters that land options were discussed during the Paris talks, and that discussions would continue.

The Ukrainian delegation would remain in Paris ⁠for further consultations, Mr. Zelenskyy added.

Ukraine had said earlier that the ​U.S. offered the idea of a free ⁠economic zone if Kyiv withdraws from parts of the Donetsk region that Ukrainian forces still control.

Russia is not willing to make any territorial concessions in talks on ending the Ukraine war, State news agency TASS quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying on Tuesday (December 16, 2025).

It said Mr. Ryabkov was talking about the Donbas, Crimea and the swathe of land that Moscow calls “Novorossiya”.

Ukraine has presented the U.S. with a revised 20-point framework to end its war with Russia, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday (December 11, 2025), adding that the issue of ceding territory remains a major sticking point in negotiations.

Speaking to reporters in Kyiv, Mr. Zelenskyy said the U.S. is offering as a compromise to create a “free economic zone” in the Ukraine-controlled parts of the eastern Donbas which Russia has demanded that Ukraine cede.

“They see it as Ukrainian troops withdrawing from the Donetsk region, and the compromise is supposedly that Russian troops will not enter this part of Donetsk region. They do not know who will govern this territory,” he said, adding that Russia is referring to it as a “demilitarized zone”.

However, Mr. Zelenskyy said there was still no common understanding on the land issue and that Ukrainians should vote on any territorial concessions in a referendum.

Kyiv, in the latest round of frantic shuttle diplomacy, is seeking to balance out a 28-point U.S.-backed plan whose original version was seen as too favourable to Moscow.

Mr. Zelenskyy added that Russia’s withdrawal from slivers of land in the northeastern Kharkiv and Sumy regions, as well as the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region, was part of the discussion.

The contact lines in the partially occupied southern regions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson would be frozen where they are, he added.

The U.S. also offered potential joint governance of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the largest such facility in Europe and currently occupied by Russia, which wants to keep the station under its own control.

Pressure to secure peace

Ukraine is under mounting U.S. pressure to quickly secure a deal with Russia, which has stepped up advances on the frontline in recent months and renewed massive attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure.

Zelenskiy, following reports that President Donald Trump had
set a Christmas deadline for Ukraine to accept the peace
proposal, said Washington had not given Kyiv a strict timeline.

“I think they really wanted, or perhaps still want, to have
a complete understanding of where we stand with this agreement
by Christmas,” he said.

Apart from a 20-point framework, the general peace plan will
include separate documents on security guarantees, to prevent
Russia from attacking again, and on rebuilding Ukraine’s war-hit
cities.

Ukraine, which says it has been let down by previous
security assurances from allies, insists that guarantees are
ratified in parliament.

Zelenskiy said on Thursday he had an “in-depth” discussion
on the matter with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of
Defense Pete Hegseth and White House special envoy Steve
Witkoff.

Kyiv also wants to maintain a strong army after fighting ends, and Mr. Zelenskyy said the latest draft proposal puts it at 800,000 — higher than in an initial framework, according to reports.