Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said a security agreement between Ukraine and the United States is “100% ready” to be signed, following two days of talks involving representatives from Ukraine, the US and Russia in Abu Dhabi. Speaking to journalists in Vilnius during a visit to Lithuania, the Ukrainian president said his country was waiting for partners to confirm a date and place for the signing, after which the document would be submitted to the US Congress and the Ukrainian parliament for ratification.
Zelenskyy described the Abu Dhabi talks as likely the first trilateral format in “quite a long while” to include military representatives from all three sides, while acknowledging fundamental differences between Ukrainian and Russian positions, particularly over territorial issues. He also reiterated Ukraine’s push for European Union membership by 2027, describing it as an “economic security guarantee”.
Meanwhile, more than 1,300 apartment buildings in Kyiv remained without heating on Sunday for a second day after Russian strikes, with sub-zero temperatures and repeated airstrikes slowing repair crews. Mayor Vitalii Klitschko said hundreds of buildings were affected as efforts continued to restore heating and electricity.
At an event in Vilnius commemorating the 1863 uprising against Tsarist Russia, Polish president Karol Nawrocki called for unity among countries threatened by an “imperial Russia”, saying that “whether it’s tsarist Russia, Bolshevik Russia, or Vladimir Putin’s Russia, our countries now independent still face the same problem”. Zelenskyy, speaking at the same event, warned that it was “too early for Europe to relax while Russia’s war machine is still running”.
Separately, European nations have committed to a new clean energy pact, the Hamburg Declaration, aimed at boosting regional energy security. The deal, to be signed at a summit in the German port city, will bring an “unprecedented fleet” of offshore wind projects to the North Sea, according to the UK Department for Energy Security, three years after North Sea countries pledged to build 300GW of offshore wind by 2050.
In Russia, drone debris sparked fires at two enterprises in the Krasnodar region, with one person injured in Slavyansk-on-Kuban. Russia’s defence ministry said air defence systems had intercepted and destroyed 40 Ukrainian drones overnight, including 34 in the Krasnodar region.
