Russia’s war on Ukraine latest news: Zelenskiy warns of more attacks on energy infrastructure

(Reuters) – Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned against more potential Russian attacks on energy infrastructure, while the mayor of Kyiv urged residents to consider preparing to leave temporarily if the capital lost water and power supplies.

DIPLOMACY

* U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan has held undisclosed talks with top Russian officials in hopes of reducing the risk the war in Ukraine spills over or escalates into a nuclear conflict, the Wall Street Journal said.

* President Joe Biden’s administration is privately encouraging Ukraine’s leaders to signal an openness to negotiate with Russia and drop their public refusal to engage in peace talks unless President Vladimir Putin is removed from power, the Washington Post said.

* German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, under fire for a Friday trip to Beijing with German chief executives, said his joint statement with Chinese President Xi Jinping opposing the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine had been reason enough for the visit.

* Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy spoke with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday to discuss macro-financial aid for Ukraine and further sanctions on Iran, Zelenskiy said.

* Iran acknowledged for the first time that it had supplied drones to Moscow, but said they were sent before the war in Ukraine, where Russia has used them to target power stations and civilian infrastructure.

FIGHTING, CONFLICT

Russia is suffering heavy losses in “fierce” attacks in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region and is preparing new assaults on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, Zelenskiy said in nightly video remarks on Sunday.

The Russian-installed administration in Ukraine’s Kherson region said on Sunday a number of settlements, including Kherson city, had lost water and power supplies after what it called an act of “sabotage”.

Ukraine’s army accused Russia on Sunday of the large-scale destruction of civilian vessels moored on the banks of the Dnipro River in the occupied southern region of Kherson that Kyiv’s forces are trying to capture.

* Ukraine’s Russian-held Nova Kakhovka dam was damaged in shelling by Ukrainian forces, Russian news agencies said on Sunday, citing emergency services, but gave no supporting evidence and Reuters could not immediately verify the reports.

* External power has been restored to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant two days after it was disconnected from the power grid following damage to high-voltage lines from Russian shelling, the United Nations nuclear watchdog said.

ECONOMY

* Georgia is on course to become one of the world’s fastest-growing economies this year, following a dramatic influx of more than 100,000 Russians since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and Vladimir Putin’s mobilisation drive to drum up war recruits.

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