Ukraine and Russia are conducting preliminary negotiations to end strikes on each otherʼs energy infrastructure.
This was reported by the Financial Times (FT) with reference to sources familiar with the matter.
According to the publicationʼs interlocutors, including high-ranking Ukrainian officials, Kyiv seeks to resume negotiations mediated by Qatar, which were close to reaching an agreement in August 2024, but broke down due to Ukraineʼs offensive on the Kursk region.
“There are very early talks about potentially relaunching something. Negotiations are now underway regarding energy facilities," said an unnamed Ukrainian official familiar with the negotiations.
This agreement, if reached, could be the most significant de-escalation since the full-scale invasion of Russia, the FT notes.
According to the publicationʼs sources, in recent weeks, as part of the agreements reached by the intelligence services of both countries, Russia and Ukraine have already reduced the number of attacks on each otherʼs energy infrastructure.
As winter approaches, Ukraine faces serious challenges due to large-scale Russian missile strikes that have destroyed almost half of its energy-generating capacity. Currently, the country mainly relies on its nuclear power plants and imports of energy carriers from European partners.
But as a high-ranking Russian official participating in the negotiations emphasized, Russian leader Putin is unlikely to agree to an agreement until Russian forces push Ukrainian forces out of the Kursk region, where Kyiv still controls about 600 sq.km. of territory.
"While the Ukrainians are trampling the ground in Kursk, Putin will attack Zelenskyʼs energy infrastructure," said a Russian official.
At the same time, according to a high-ranking Ukrainian official, Ukraine plans to continue striking Russian targets, including oil refineries, in order to pressure Russia in negotiations. According to him, apart from long-range weapons that would allow Kyiv to hit energy and military facilities on the territory of Russia, the Ukrainians "do not have that much leverage to force the Russians to negotiate."
According to the FT, the Kursk region invasion led to Moscow pulling out of a previous round of talks in August 2024 — just as officials began planning a face-to-face meeting in Doha, Qatar.
Other attempts to reach agreements have also failed in the past. According to four Ukrainian officials, last fall, Kyiv and Moscow concluded a "tacit agreement" that they would not strike each otherʼs energy facilities. As a result, according to two Ukrainian and one American source, Russia refrained from large-scale attacks on Ukraineʼs energy infrastructure that winter. This agreement was supposed to pave the way for an official agreement.
However, in February and March 2024, Kyiv resumed drone attacks on Russian oil facilities, seeking to increase pressure on Moscow. The FT writes that despite calls from the White House to stop the strikes, Kyiv continued them, so Moscow considered it a violation of the agreement. After that, Russia attacked power plants throughout Ukraine, in particular, it destroyed the Trypilska TPP 40 km from Kyiv.
In October, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that a mutual cessation of shelling of energy infrastructure facilities and cargo ships could be a step towards ending the war.
- In August 2024, The Washington Post journalists, citing sources, wrote that Ukraineʼs offensive in the Kursk region disrupted secret negotiations with Russia on a mutual cessation of strikes on energy infrastructure.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly stated that Kyiv will consider a full ceasefire only on the condition that Russia first withdraws all its troops from Ukrainian territory, including Crimea, which was occupied in 2014. Putin, on the other hand, demanded the complete withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions within their administrative borders. Also, Kyiv must officially abandon plans to join NATO — only then will Russia go to negotiations.
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