Moscow, on Wednesday , demanded Kyiv accept its conditions to end the four-year-war and vowed to press on with its invasion otherwise, as negotiations between the two sides opened in Abu Dhabi.

The US-mediated talks are the latest round of negotiations in a flurry of diplomacy that has so far failed to strike a deal to halt the war, unleashed by Russia’s February 2022 invasion.

The Kremlin’s hardline rhetoric along with a massive Russian drone and missile barrage in the run-up to the talks, pounding Ukraine’s energy grid and knocking out power and heating in temperatures far below freezing threatened to overshadow any chances of progress in the Emirati capital.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had earlier  said that Russia’s strikes on Kyiv’s energy system confirms that attitudes in Moscow have not changed, as they continue to bet on war and the destruction of Ukraine, and they do not take diplomacy seriously.

US President Donald Trump, however, said Russian President Vladimir Putin had kept his word with a week-long promise not to hit the capital or critical energy facilities.

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