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  • US gave Ukraine and Russia a June deadline to reach agreement to end war, Zelenskyy says

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    KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The U.S. has given Ukraine and Russia a June deadline to reach a deal to end the nearly four‑year war, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters, as Russian strikes on energy infrastructure forced nuclear power plants to cut output on Saturday.

    If the June deadline is not met, the Trump administration will likely put pressure on both sides to meet it, he added.

    “The Americans are proposing the parties end the war by the beginning of this summer and will probably put pressure on the parties precisely according to this schedule,” Zelenskyy said, speaking to reporters on Friday. Zelenskyy’s comments were embargoed until Saturday morning.

    “And they say that they want to do everything by June. And they will do everything to end the war. And they want a clear schedule of all events,” he said.

    He said the U.S. proposed holding the next round of trilateral talks next week in their country for the first time, likely in Miami, Zelenskyy said. “We confirmed our participation,” he added.

    Zelenskyy said Russia presented the U.S. with a $12 trillion economic proposal — which he dubbed the “Dmitriev package” after Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev. Bilateral economic deals with the U.S. form part of the broader negotiating process.

    Russian strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure continued with over 400 drones and about 40 missiles launched overnight Saturday, Zelenskyy said in a post on X. Targets included the energy grid, generation facilities and distribution networks.

    Ukrenergo, the state energy transmission operator, said the attack was the second mass strike on energy infrastructure since the start of the year, forcing nuclear power plants to reduce output. Eight facilities in eight regions came under attack, it said in a statement.

    “As a result of missile strikes on key high-voltage substations that ensured the output of nuclear power units, all nuclear power plants in the territories under control were forced to reduce their load,” the statement said.

    It said the power deficit in the country has increased “significantly” as a result of the attacks forcing an extension of hourly power outages in all regions of Ukraine.

    The latest deadline follows U.S.-brokered trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi that produced no breakthrough as the warring parties cling to mutually exclusive demands. Russia is pressing Ukraine to withdraw from the Donbas, where fighting remains intense — a condition Kyiv says it will never accept.

    “Difficult issues remained difficult. Ukraine once again confirmed its positions on the Donbas issue. ‘We stand where we stand’ is the fairest and most reliable model for a ceasefire today, in our opinion,” Zelenskyy said. He reiterated that the most challenging topics would be reserved for a trilateral meeting between leaders.

    Zelenskyy said no common ground was reached on managing the Russian‑held Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant and expressed skepticism about a U.S. proposal to turn the Donbas region, coveted by Russia, into a free economic zone as a compromise.

    “I do not know whether this can be implemented, because when we talked about a free economic zone, we had different views on it,” he said.

    He said in the last round of talks the negotiators discussed how a ceasefire would be technically monitored. He added that the U.S. has reaffirmed it would play a role in that process.

    Repeated Russian aerial assaults have in recent months focused on Ukraine’s power grid, causing blackouts and disrupting the heating and water supply for families during a bitterly cold winter, putting more pressure on Kyiv.

    Zelenskyy said the U.S. again proposed a ceasefire banning strikes on energy infrastructure. Ukraine is ready to observe such a pause if Russia commits; but he added that when Moscow previously agreed to a one-week pause suggested by the U.S., it was violated after just four days.

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    Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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  • Russia bombards Ukraine with drones and missiles a day before planned peace talks

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    KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia carried out a major attack on Ukraine overnight, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday, a day before representatives of the two countries were due to attend U.S.-brokered talks on ending the 4-year-old all-out war.

    At least 10 people were wounded in a bombardment of at least five regions of Ukraine that comprised 450 long-range drones and 70 missiles, including a record number of 32 ballistic missiles. It specifically took aim at the power grid, Zelenskyy said, as part of what Ukraine says is Moscow’s ongoing campaign to deny civilians light, heating and running water during the coldest winter in years.

    “Taking advantage of the coldest days of winter to terrorize people is more important to Russia than diplomacy,” Zelenskyy said. Temperatures in Kyiv fell to minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 Fahrenheit) during the night and stood at minus 16 C (minus 3 F) on Tuesday.

    NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte visited Kyiv in a show of support. Zelenskyy met him and urged allies to send more air defense supplies and bring “maximum pressure” to bear on Russia to end its full-scale invasion.

    Officials have described recent talks between Moscow and Kyiv delegations as constructive. But after a year of efforts, the Trump administration is still searching for a breakthrough on key issues such as who keeps the Ukrainian land that Russia’s army has occupied, and a comprehensive settlement appears distant. The Abu Dhabi talks are scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday.

    NATO show of support

    Rutte addressed the Ukrainian parliament during his visit and said that countries in the military alliance “are ready to provide support quickly and consistently” as peace efforts drag on.

    Since last summer, NATO members have provided 75% of all missiles supplied to the front, and 90% of those used for Ukraine’s air defense, he said.

    European countries, fearing Moscow’s ambitions, see their own future security as being on the line in Ukraine.

    “Be assured that NATO stands with Ukraine and is ready to do so for years to come,” Rutte said. “Your security is our security. Your peace is our peace. And it must be lasting.”

    Power grid attacks

    A Kremlin official said last week that Russia had agreed to halt strikes on Kyiv for a week until Feb. 1 because of the frigid temperatures, following a personal request from U.S. President Donald Trump to Russian President Vladimir Putin. However, the bitter cold is continuing and so are Russia’s aerial attacks.

    Ukrains says Russia has tried to wear down Ukrainians’ appetite for the fight by creating hardship for the civilian population living in dark, freezing homes.

    It has tried to wreck Ukraine’s electricity network, targeting substations, transformers, turbines and generators at power plants. Ukraine’s largest private power company, DTEK, said that the overnight attack hit its thermal power plants in the ninth major assault since October.

    In Kyiv, officials said that five people were wounded in the strikes that damaged and set fire to residential buildings, a kindergarten and a gas station in various parts of the capital, according to the State Emergency Service.

    By early morning, 1,170 apartment buildings in the capital were without heating, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. That set back desperate repair operations that had restored power to all but 80 apartment buildings, he said.

    Russia also struck Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, where injuries were reported, and the southern Odesa region.

    The attack also damaged the Hall of Fame at the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War, at the foot of the Motherland Monument in Kyiv, Ukrainian Culture Minister Tetiana Berezhna said.

    “It is symbolic and cynical at the same time: The aggressor state strikes a place of memory about the fight against aggression in the 20th century, repeating crimes in the 21st,” Berezhna said.

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    Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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  • Trump says 8 European countries will be charged a 10% tariff for opposing US control of Greenland

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    NUUK, Greenland (AP) — President Donald Trump said Saturday that he would charge a 10% import tax starting in February on goods from eight European countries because of opposition to U.S. control of Greenland.

    He said in a social media post that Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Finland would face the tariff, which would be raised to 25% on June 1 if a deal is not in place for “the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland” by the United States.

    THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

    NUUK, Greenland (AP) — Hundreds of people in Greenland’s capital braved near-freezing temperatures, rain and icy streets to march in a rally on Saturday in support of their own self-governance in the face of threats of an American takeover.

    The Greenlanders waved their red-and-white national flags and listened to traditional songs as they walked through Nuuk’s small downtown. Some carried signs with messages like “We shape our future,” “Greenland is not for sale” and “Greenland is already GREAT.” They were joined by thousands of others in rallies across the Danish kingdom.

    The rallies occurred hours after a bipartisan U.S. congressional delegation in Copenhagen sought to reassure Denmark and Greenland of their support following U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to punish countries with tariffs if they don’t back the administration’s stance that the United States should take control of the strategic Arctic island.

    The leader of the delegation, U.S. Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, said that the current rhetoric around Greenland is causing concern across the Danish kingdom. Coons said that he wants to de-escalate the situation.

    “I hope that the people of the Kingdom of Denmark do not abandon their faith in the American people,” he said in Copenhagen, adding that the U.S. has respect for Denmark and NATO “for all we’ve done together.”

    NATO training exercises

    Meanwhile, Danish Maj. Gen. Søren Andersen, leader of the Joint Arctic Command, told The Associated Press that Denmark doesn’t expect the U.S. military to attack Greenland, or any other NATO ally, and that European troops were recently deployed to Nuuk for Arctic defense training.

    He said that the goal isn’t to send a message to the Trump administration, even through the White House hasn’t ruled out taking the territory by force.

    “I will not go into the political part, but I will say that I would never expect a NATO country to attack another NATO country,” he told the AP on Saturday aboard a Danish military vessel docked in Nuuk. “For us, for me, it’s not about signaling. It is actually about training military units, working together with allies.”

    The Danish military organized a planning meeting Friday in Greenland with NATO allies, including the U.S., to discuss Arctic security on the alliance’s northern flank in the face of a potential Russian threat. The Americans were also invited to participate in Operation Arctic Endurance in Greenland in the coming days, Andersen said.

    In his 2½ years as a commander in Greenland, Andersen said that he hasn’t seen any Chinese or Russian combat vessels or warships, despite Trump saying that they were off the island’s coast.

    But in the unlikely event of American troops using force on Danish soil, Andersen confirmed a Cold War-era law governing Danish rules of engagement.

    “But you are right that it is Danish law that a Danish soldier, if attacked, has the obligation to fight back,” he said.

    ‘Important for the whole world’

    Thousands of people marched through Copenhagen, many of them carrying Greenland’s flag, on Saturday afternoon in support of the self-governing island. Others held signs with slogans like “Make America Smart Again” and “Hands Off.”

    “This is important for the whole world,” Danish protester Elise Riechie told the AP as she held Danish and Greenlandic flags. “There are many small countries. None of them are for sale.”

    Coons’ comments contrasted with statements emanating from the White House. Trump has sought to justify his calls for a U.S. takeover by repeatedly saying that China and Russia have their own designs on Greenland, which holds vast untapped reserves of critical minerals.

    “There are no current security threats to Greenland,” Coons said.

    Trump has insisted for months that the U.S. should control Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark, and said earlier this week that anything less than the Arctic island being in U.S. hands would be “unacceptable.”

    During an unrelated event at the White House about rural health care, he recounted Friday how he had threatened European allies with tariffs on pharmaceuticals.

    “I may do that for Greenland, too,” Trump said. “I may put a tariff on countries if they don’t go along with Greenland, because we need Greenland for national security. So I may do that.”

    He hadn’t previously mentioned using tariffs to try to force the issue.

    Earlier this week, the foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland met in Washington with U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

    That encounter didn’t resolve the deep differences, but did produce an agreement to set up a working group — on whose purpose Denmark and the White House then offered sharply diverging public views.

    European leaders have said that it’s only for Denmark and Greenland to decide on matters concerning the territory, and Denmark said this week that it was increasing its military presence in Greenland in cooperation with allies.

    “There is almost no better ally to the United States than Denmark,” Coons said. “If we do things that cause Danes to question whether we can be counted on as a NATO ally, why would any other country seek to be our ally or believe in our representations?”

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    Niemann reported from Copenhagen, Denmark, and Boak from West Palm Beach, Fla. Associated Press writer Stefanie Dazio in Berlin contributed to this report.

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  • Russia launches another major attack on Ukraine’s power grid, killing 4

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    KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia launched a second major drone and missile bombardment of Ukraine in four days, officials said Tuesday, aiming again at the power grid and apparently snubbing U.S.-led peace efforts as the war approaches the four-year mark.

    Russia fired almost 300 drones, 18 ballistic missiles and seven cruise missiles at eight regions overnight, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on social media.

    One strike in the northeastern Kharkiv region killed four people at a mail depot, and several hundred thousand households were without power in the Kyiv region, Zelenskyy said. The daytime temperature in the capital was -12 C (around 10 F). The streets were covered with ice, and the city rumbled with the noise from generators.

    Four days earlier, Russia also sent hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles in a large-scale overnight attack and, for only the second time in the war, it used a powerful new hypersonic missile that struck western Ukraine in what appeared to be a clear warning to Kyiv’s NATO allies that it won’t back down.

    On Monday, the United States accused Russia of a “ dangerous and inexplicable escalation ” of the fighting, when the Trump administration is trying to advance peace negotiations.

    Tammy Bruce, the U.S. deputy ambassador to the United Nations, told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council that Washington deplores “the staggering number of casualties” in the conflict and condemns Russia’s intensifying attacks on energy and other infrastructure.

    Russia has sought to deny Ukrainian civilians heat and running water in the freezing winter months over the course of the war, hoping to wear down public resistance to Moscow’s full-scale invasion, which began on Feb. 24, 2022. Ukrainian officials describe the strategy as “weaponizing winter.”

    In Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, the Russian attack also wounded 10 people, local authorities said.

    In the southern city of Odesa, six people were wounded in the attack, said Oleh Kiper, the head of the regional military administration. The strikes damaged energy infrastructure, a hospital, a kindergarten, an educational facility and a number of residential buildings, he said.

    Zelenskyy said that Ukraine is counting on quicker deliveries of agreed upon air defense systems from the U.S. and Europe, as well as new pledges of aid, to counter Russia’s latest onslaught.

    Meanwhile, Russian air defenses shot down 11 Ukrainian drones overnight, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said Tuesday. Seven were reportedly destroyed over Russia’s Rostov region, where Gov. Yuri Slyusar confirmed an attack on the coastal city of Taganrog.

    Ukrainian officials have previously said that they have targeted Atlant Aero, a company in Taganrog that produces components for combat drones. The city also hosts the Beriev aircraft company.

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    Katie Marie Davies contributed to this report from Manchester, England.

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    Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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  • Trump reports a ‘very productive call’ with Putin before engaging with Zelenskyy in Florida

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    WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump will host his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on Sunday to try to close out a peace agreement that would end nearly four years of war sparked by Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia intensified its attacks on Ukraine’s capital and elsewhere in the days before the meeting.

    Trump said he spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday in advance of the meeting. “I just had a good and very productive telephone call with President Putin,” he posted on Truth Social.

    Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov, said the call was initiated by the U.S. side, lasted over an hour, and was “friendly, benevolent, and businesslike.” Ushakov said Trump and Putin agreed to speak again “promptly” after Trump’s meeting with Zelenskyy.

    Trump and Zelenskyy will meet at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s private club in Palm Beach, where the U.S. president is spending the holidays. Zelenskyy, who arrived in Miami in the morning, said the two planned to discuss security and economic agreements in their early afternoon meeting. He said he will raise “territorial issues” as Moscow and Kyiv remain fiercely at odds over the fate of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.

    In overnight developments, three guided aerial bombs launched by Russia struck private homes in the eastern city of Sloviansk, according to the head of the local military administration, Vadym Lakh. Three people were injured and one man died, Lakh said in a post on the Telegram messenger app.

    The strike came the day after Russia attacked Ukraine’s capital with ballistic missiles and drones on Saturday, killing at least one person and wounding 27, a day before planned talks between the leaders of Ukraine and the United States, Ukrainian authorities said. Explosions boomed across Kyiv as the attack began in the early morning and continued for hours.

    In advance of his meeting with Trump, Zelenskyy said Sunday that he spoke on the phone with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, filling him in “on the situation on the frontline and on the consequences of Russian strikes.” He posted on X: “Thank you, Keir, for the constant coordination!” Zelenskyy’s office said he will speak by phone with allies after the meeting with Trump.

    Trump, on Truth Social, said he and Zelenskyy will meet in the main dining room of Mar-a-Lago and the news media will be allowed in.

    In a meeting Saturday with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Zelenskyy said the key to peace is “pressure on Russia and sufficient, strong support for Ukraine.” To that end, Carney announced more economic assistance from his government to help Ukraine rebuild.

    Denouncing the “barbarism” of Russia’s latest attacks on Kyiv, Carney credited both Zelenskyy and Trump with creating the conditions for a “just and lasting peace” at a crucial moment.

    “Ukraine is willing to do whatever it takes to stop this war,” Zelenskyy posted Saturday. “We need to be strong at the negotiating table.”

    In response to the attacks, he wrote: “We want peace, and Russia demonstrates a desire to continue the war. If the whole world — Europe and America — is on our side, together we will stop” Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    Trump and Zelenskyy sitting down face-to-face also underscored the apparent progress made by Trump’s top negotiators in recent weeks as the sides traded draft peace plans and continued to shape a proposal to end the fighting. Zelenskyy told reporters Friday that the 20-point draft proposal negotiators have discussed is “about 90% ready” — echoing a figure, and the optimism, that U.S. officials conveyed when Trump’s chief negotiators met with Zelenskyy in Berlin earlier this month.

    During the recent talks, the U.S. agreed to offer certain security guarantees to Ukraine similar to those offered to other members of NATO. The proposal came as Zelenskyy said he was prepared to drop his country’s bid to join the security alliance if Ukraine received NATO-like protection that would be designed to safeguard it against future Russian attacks.

    ‘Intensive’ weeks ahead

    Zelenskyy also spoke on Christmas Day with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law. The Ukrainian leader said they discussed “certain substantive details” and cautioned “there is still work to be done on sensitive issues” and “the weeks ahead may also be intensive.”

    The U.S. president has been working to end the war in Ukraine for much of his first year back in office, showing irritation with both Zelenskyy and Putin while publicly acknowledging the difficulty of ending the conflict. Long gone are the days when, as a candidate in 2024, he boasted that he could resolve the fighting in a day.

    After hosting Zelenskyy at the White House in October, Trump demanded that both Russia and Ukraine halt fighting and “stop at the battle line,” implying that Moscow should be able to keep the territory it has seized from Ukraine.

    Zelenskyy said last week that he would be willing to withdraw troops from Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland as part of a plan to end the war, if Russia also pulls back and the area becomes a demilitarized zone monitored by international forces.

    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Friday that the Kremlin had already been in contact with U.S.

    “It was agreed upon to continue the dialogue,” he said.

    Putin wants Russian gains kept, and more

    Putin has publicly said he wants all the areas in four key regions that have been captured by his forces, as well as the Crimean Peninsula, illegally annexed in 2014, to be recognized as Russian territory. He also has insisted that Ukraine withdraw from some areas in eastern Ukraine that Moscow’s forces haven’t captured. Kyiv has publicly rejected all those demands.

    The Kremlin also wants Ukraine to abandon its bid to join NATO. It warned that it wouldn’t accept the deployment of any troops from members of the military alliance and would view them as a “legitimate target.”

    Putin also has said Ukraine must limit the size of its army and give official status to the Russian language, demands he has made from the outset of the conflict.

    Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, told the business daily Kommersant this month that Russian police and national guard would stay in parts of Donetsk -– one of the two major areas, along with Luhansk, that make up the Donbas region — even if they become a demilitarized zone under a prospective peace plan.

    Ushakov cautioned that trying to reach a compromise could take a long time. He said U.S. proposals that took into account Russian demands had been “worsened” by alterations proposed by Ukraine and its European allies.

    Trump has been somewhat receptive to Putin’s demands, making the case that the Russian president can be persuaded to end the war if Kyiv agrees to cede Ukrainian land in the Donbas region and if Western powers offer economic incentives to bring Russia back into the global economy.

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    Kim reported from Washington and Morton from London. Associated Press writers Illia Novikov in Kyiv and Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.

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