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US Pushes June Deadline for Peace Deal 02/09 06:22
A Russian airstrike on a residential area in eastern Ukraine killed one
person and wounded two, officials said Sunday, after Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the U.S. has given Ukraine and Russia a June deadline
to reach a peace deal.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) -- A Russian airstrike on a residential area in eastern
Ukraine killed one person and wounded two, officials said Sunday, after
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the U.S. has given Ukraine and
Russia a June deadline to reach a peace deal.
The attack on the city of Kramatorsk in Ukraine's Donetsk region caused a
fire in a nine-story apartment block, according to Ukraine's State Emergency
Service.
Russia also struck energy infrastructure in Ukraine's Poltava region
overnight into Sunday, Serhii Koretskyi, chief executive of Ukraine's
state-owned gas company Naftogaz said.
Russia has hammered Ukraine's power grid, especially in winter, throughout
the nearly 4-year-old war. It aims to weaken the Ukrainian will to resist in a
strategy that Kyiv officials call "weaponizing winter."
Zelenskyy told reporters Friday the U.S. has given Ukraine and Russia a June
deadline to reach a deal to end the war. If the June deadline is not met, the
Trump administration will likely put pressure on both sides, 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. "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 the U.S. proposed holding the next round of trilateral talks next
week in their country for the first time, likely in Miami. "We confirmed our
participation," he added.
The latest deadline follows U.S.-brokered trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi that
produced no breakthrough as the sides 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.
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