Russia will send officials to a G20 energy meeting in Houston next week, a Russian diplomat said on Saturday (September 12, 2026), as the United States ups efforts to end the Ukraine conflict.

It comes after the United States welcomed Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov to North Carolina for another G20 meeting in early September, causing discomfort among Ukraine’s European allies.

“A Russian delegation will participate in the meeting of energy ministers held under the U.S. presidency of the G20 in Houston from September 14 to 16,” Marat Berdyev, the ambassador responsible for overseeing G20-related issues, said on Telegram.

Representatives from Russia’s energy, foreign and natural resources ministries would be involved in the delegation, Mr. Berdyev added, without specifying who those representatives would be.

“Russian ideas are becoming increasingly sought after regarding flexible energy mixes, technological neutrality, the role of fossil fuels in general and of natural gas and peaceful nuclear energy in particular,” he said.

The announcement follows the “discomfort”, as Canadian Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne put it in an interview with AFP, Mr. Siluanov’s presence at the Asheville meeting of finance ministers caused Ukraine’s Western allies.

“We do not think now is the time to normalise Russia” or its presence at such talks, EU economy chief Valdis Dombrovskis said.

Washington has recently upped efforts to break a diplomatic stalemate in Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II, which began when Russia launched its full-scale Ukraine offensive in 2022.

Days after the Asheville meeting, U.S. President Donald Trump sent his envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Moscow and Kyiv for talks on ending the fighting.

Mr. Trump had pushed for Moscow and Kyiv to strike a deal to halt fighting, but his initial 28-point plan was criticised by Kyiv and Europe as caving in to the Kremlin’s demands.

The United States holds this year’s presidency of the Group of 20 major economies, which comprises 19 countries plus the European Union and the African Union, and culminates in a leaders’ summit in Miami in December.. The body was established in the wake of the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis to boost global economic and financial stability.

Zelenskyy says willing to meet Putin at G20 in Miami: interview

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he would be willing to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in December, in an interview released Saturday (September 12, 2026), as efforts intensify to end the conflict.

Asked whether he would be willing to meet Mr. Putin at the December summit if both leaders were invited, Mr. Zelenskyy told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle: “Yes, of course”.

“We have to come. We have to meet, to speak, and make decisions”.

“It’s not about words. What I will tell him or what he wants to tell me, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. Result matters. That’s it.”

In the Deutsche Welle interview, which took place Friday (September 11, 2026) in Canada, Mr. Zelenskyy said that Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner’s visit was a “good signal”, and it was important the pair had visited Kyiv as well as Moscow.

Mr. Zelenskyy has also announced he plans to meet Mr. Trump in late September, as Washington pushes for fresh face-to-face talks between Moscow and Kyiv.

Asked about Ukraine’s position ahead of possible negotiations, Mr. Zelenskyy responded: “Ukraine now is much more stronger than last year on the battlefield.”

Russia was sustaining heavy battlefield losses, paying a “big price” for “very slow moves on the battlefield”. he said.

“That’s why we think that we have now good position for negotiations.”

Kyiv has said the talks could happen as early as this month, but the Kremlin on Monday (September 7, 2026) said it was “too early” to discuss a venue or dates.

Several previous rounds of negotiations have failed. Trust between the sides is low, and there is no sign that Moscow or Kyiv have shifted their positions.

Both Moscow and Kyiv have escalated long-range strikes on each other in recent months, leading to the highest civilian death toll since the early days of the war.

Mr. Zelenskyy also repeated his call for Ukraine’s allies to provide more interceptor missiles to fend off Russian air attacks.

“Russia produces today 140 ballistic missiles per month. So, according to the rules of NATO, if you want to destroy 140, you need 280. You will never have 280 missiles per month,” he said.

It was a “huge challenge” to have 100 a month, he said.

Published – September 12, 2026 04:21 pm IST

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). File
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Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a briefing with a group of journalists on August 22, 2026, the first in months amid several political crises. File
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Five people were killed in Russia’s southwestern Rostov region, where three towns came under attack, local Governor Yury Slyusar said. File picture
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Latvia’s Foreign Minister Baiba Braže, speaks with the media as she arrives for a meeting of EU Foreign Ministers at the European Council building in Brussels on May 11, 2026.
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Fire and smoke rise at the Tuapse oil refinery near the Tuapse port, following a Ukrainian drone attack, according to Russian officials, in Tuapse, Krasnodar Krai, Russia, in this screengrab obtained from a social media video released on April 20, 2026.
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A firefighter works at the site of a residential building which was hit during overnight Russian drone strikes, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Odesa, Ukraine, April 11, 2026.
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A major Russian drone and missile attack on civilian areas of Ukraine killed four people and injured at least 27, officials said Tuesday (March 24, 2026).

Moscow’s army stepped up efforts to break through Ukrainian front-line defence in what could be the start of an anticipated spring ground offensive.

Russia fired almost 400 long-range drones at Ukraine overnight, Ukraine’s air force said, in its biggest attack in weeks. The onslaught continued into Tuesday (March 24, 2026) morning as dozens of drones targeted the capital Kyiv during daylight.

Russia also launched 23 cruise missiles and seven ballistic missiles at Ukraine during the night, hitting at least 10 locations across the country, according to the air force.

Ukrainian civilians have endured relentless barrages since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbour more than four years ago.

U.S.-brokered talks between Moscow and Kyiv over the past year have brought no respite, with Russia rejecting Ukraine’s offer of a ceasefire and in recent weeks the Iran war has diverted international attention from Ukraine’s plight.

Russia intensifies front-line attacks

On the roughly 1,250-kilometer front line snaking along eastern and southern parts of Ukraine, the short-handed defenders have been bracing for a new offensive by Russia’s bigger army as the weather improves.

The Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, said Russian troops in recent days have made simultaneous attempts to break through defensive lines in several strategic areas.

“Fierce fighting unfolded along the entire line of contact,” Mr. Syrskyi said Monday (March 23, 2026) on the Telegram messaging app, with Russia launching 619 attacks in four days.

“The occupiers are attempting to bring up new units and are preparing to continue attacks,” Mr. Syrskyi said, adding that Ukraine had deployed reinforcements to counter the assaults.

It was not possible to independently verify the battlefield claims.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said Mr. Syrskyi’s report backed up its assessment that Russia’s spring-summer offensive is now underway.

Russia escalated its strikes from March 17 and has moved heavy equipment and more troops to the front line, the ISW said late Monday.

Each year, as the weather improves, Russia has moved its grinding war of attrition up a gear. However, it has been unable to capture cities and has made only incremental gains across rural areas. Russia occupies about 20% of Ukraine. That includes the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia seized in 2014.

Ukrainian soldier says front line situation is tense but not critical

A Ukrainian soldier fighting near the city of Lyman in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, whose complete capture is one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s main invasion goals, said Russian forces have intensified assaults in recent days but failed to achieve a breakthrough, despite increasing bombardments and repeated ground attacks.

Russian troops had earlier sought to isolate Lyman by targeting logistics routes before escalating their offensive, according to the soldier, who gave only his call sign King, in keeping with the rules of the Ukrainian military.

Ukrainian units repelled initial assaults, destroying advancing Russian columns and inflicting significant losses in armoured vehicles and personnel, he said.

In response, Russian forces have increased airstrikes on the town, including the use of powerful glide bombs. “The situation is tense, but not critical,” King said.

Drones allow Ukraine to fend off Russian ground attacks

Ukraine has developed advanced drone technology to make up for its shortage of infantry.

Amid the West Asia conflict, Kyiv is offering Ukraine’s battle-tested drone defences to the U.S. and Gulf partners, hoping to trade that know-how for scarce Patriot air defense missiles it needs to fend off Russia’s barrages.

Ukraine has also used its domestically produced long-range drones to hit areas of Russia that support Moscow’s war effort. Russian air defence intercepted 55 Ukrainian drones overnight over Russian regions, the annexed Crimea and the Black Sea, the Russian Defense Ministry reported Tuesday (March 24, 2026).

Published – March 24, 2026 10:22 pm IST

Ukraine and Russia swapped over 300 prisoners following “productive” talks in Abu Dhabi on Thursday (February 5, 2026), as a U.S. mediator conceded that “significant” work lay ahead in the quest for a broader deal to end the war.

The negotiations are the latest bid in diplomatic efforts to halt the fighting — Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II, with hundreds of thousands killed, millions forced to flee their homes and much of eastern and southern Ukraine left decimated.

As talks were underway, large swathes of the Ukrainian capital were still without heating in sub-zero temperatures, after successive Russian strikes knocked out energy supplies to hundreds of apartment blocks in Kyiv.

Also Read | Russia bombards Ukraine with drones and missiles a day before planned peace talks

“Today, delegations from the United States, Ukraine, and Russia agreed to exchange 314 prisoners — the first such exchange in five months,” U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff said on social media during the second day of talks in Abu Dhabi.

Russia’s Defence Ministry later confirmed the two sides changed 157 prisoners each.

While Mr. Witkoff described the negotiations as “detailed and productive,” he dimmed hopes for a breakthrough, saying “significant work remains.”

On Wednesday (February 4), Kyiv had described the first day of negotiations as “substantive and productive”.

Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev also said talks were going well. “There is definitely progress, things are moving forward in a good, positive direction,” he said.

But there was no update from any side on the contentious issue of territory, or any sign of concession from Moscow, which entered the talks refusing to compromise on its key demands.

The Russian Envoy also slammed what he called attempts from European nations to “disrupt the progress,” without elaborating.

In a rare official admission of battlefield losses, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday (February 4) that at least 55,000 of his country’s troops had been killed since Russia invaded in February 2022 — a figure lower than many independent estimates.

Russia has not disclosed how many of its soldiers have been killed. Tracking of obituaries and family announcements by the BBC and independent Mediazona outlet has found the names of more than 160,000 Russian soldiers killed in the conflict.

‘Concrete steps’

Ahead of the two-day talks, Russia launched its latest massive attack on Ukraine’s power infrastructure, leaving many people without power and shivering through temperatures as low as -20C.

Ukraine’s chief negotiator Rustem Umerov said Wednesday (February 4) that “concrete steps and practical solutions” had been discussed in the first day of the talks.

But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters fighting would persist “until the Kyiv regime makes the appropriate decisions”.

The main sticking point in the negotiations is the long-term fate of territory in eastern Ukraine.

Moscow is demanding that Kyiv pull its troops out of swathes of the Donbas, including heavily fortified cities atop vast natural resources, before any deal.

It also wants international recognition that land seized in the invasion belongs to Russia.

‘Maintain pressure’

Kyiv has said the conflict should be frozen along the current front line and has rejected a pull-back of forces.

The talks in Abu Dhabi are the second round of trilateral negotiations between the U.S., Russia and Ukraine.

U.S. President Donald Trump has been pushing both sides to negotiate an end to the war since he returned to office, boasting he could strike a deal in hours.

Mr. Zelenskyy said the U.S. President’s role was crucial, telling French television in an interview broadcast on Wednesday (February 5, 2026) that “Putin is only scared of Trump”.

Mr. Trump could use economic sanctions against Russia or transfer weapons to Ukraine to “maintain this pressure on Putin”, Mr. Zelenskyy said, adding that Kyiv would not compromise on sovereignty.

Russia occupies around 20% of Ukraine. It claims the Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions as its own, and holds pockets of territory in at least three other Ukrainian regions in the east.

Kyiv still controls around one-fifth of the Donetsk region that Moscow demands it withdraws from. Ukraine has warned that ceding ground will embolden Moscow, and that it will not sign a deal that fails to deter Russia from invading again.

Published – February 05, 2026 06:15 pm IST

Rescuers work at the site of a logistics hub of a private delivery company hit by Russian missile strikes, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kharkiv, Ukraine on January 13, 2026.
| Photo Credit: Reuters