Zelensky to visit Turkey in bid to ‘reinvigorate’ talks to end war

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he will travel to Turkey this week in an attempt to jump-start negotiations on ending Russia’s war, which began nearly four years ago.

US special envoy Steve Witkoff will join Mr Zelensky in Turkey, a senior Turkish official told The Associated Press, but the Kremlin said that Russia will not be sending anyone.

Turkey provided a setting for low-level talks between Ukraine and Russia earlier this year, though the only significant progress in Istanbul was on exchanging prisoners of war.

US-led international peace efforts have brought no breakthrough either.

Mr Zelensky said that he would be in Turkey on Wednesday, a day after visiting Spain where he hoped for pledges of new support on Tuesday.

“We are preparing to reinvigorate negotiations, and we have developed solutions that we will propose to our partners,” Mr Zelensky said on social media, without providing details. “Doing everything possible to bring the end of the war closer is Ukraine’s top priority.”

On Thursday, Mr Zelensky said that he would meet senior government officials, as well as with the leadership of Ukraine’s Parliament and his political party, called Servant of the People.

The Ukrainian leader was meeting later on Tuesday in Madrid with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and King Felipe VI, with a visit planned as well to Spain’s parliament.

Kicking off a busy week, Mr Zelensky was in Paris on Monday where he signed a letter of intent to buy up to 100 Rafale warplanes from France, along with drones and ground-to-air systems.

On the battlefield, Ukraine launched a surprise aerial attack on energy infrastructure in occupied parts of its eastern Donetsk region.

The Russian-appointed head of the partially occupied region, Denis Pushilin, on Tuesday morning reported an “unprecedented” Ukrainian attack that damaged two thermal power stations in the region and left many areas without power.

A day earlier, Mr Pushilin also reported Ukrainian drones attacking energy infrastructure in the region, denying power to around 500,000 consumers. The occupied part of the region has also endured water shortages.

Ukrainian forces, despite being heavily outnumbered, are fighting hard to prevent Russia’s army from capturing any more of Donetsk.

In Ukraine’s north-eastern Kharkiv region, meanwhile, a 17-year-old girl was killed and 10 other people were wounded in a Russian missile strike on the town of Berestyn, about 70 miles) from the Russian border, regional head Oleh Syniehubov said.

Russian drones sparked multiple fires in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Monday night, injuring two people, said Vladyslav Haivanenko, the head of the regional military administration.

The drones damaged six residential buildings, as well as the local offices of Ukraine’s public broadcaster Suspilne, though the company said the building was empty at the time.

Ukraine’s railway operator Ukrzaliznytsia said that train carriages and other infrastructure were damaged in the Dnipro attack.

Ukraine’s air force said that Russia fired four ballistic Iskander-M missiles, along with 114 strike and decoy drones at the country overnight.

The Russian Defence Ministry reported on Tuesday that its air defences shot down 31 Ukrainian drones over a number of Russian regions.