Sawt Falasteen - Ukraine hopes for at least 'partial ceasefire' at Saudi talks

Momentum has been building in recent weeks towards a ceasefire in the three-year war as US officials hold talks with both sides, though their efforts have so far failed to yield a breakthrough.

Both Russia and Ukraine say they back a 30-day pause in strikes on energy infrastructure, a pause that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered on Tuesday but that Kyiv says Moscow has already broken.

US negotiators will meet separately with Ukrainian and Russian delegations in Saudi Arabia on Monday, in what US envoy Keith Kellogg described to US media as "shuttle diplomacy" between hotel rooms.

Ukraine last week gave its approval to a US-proposed 30-day ceasefire on land, air and sea, an idea that Russia rejected.

"We still want to agree on a ceasefire, at least on what we have proposed," a Ukrainian source told AFP, referring to calls for a halt to strikes on energy sites, civilian infrastructure and attacks in the Black Sea.

The Ukrainian delegation in Saudi Arabia will be led by Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, who will handle a "technical discussion" of issues surrounding the implementation of any truce, the source said.

Those questions included "what facilities" strikes would be limited against, and "how to oversee the ceasefire", the source added.

The Russian delegation will be led by career diplomat Grigory Karasin and senior FSB official Sergei Beseda, neither of whom are seen as high-ranking decision makers.

"They are experienced negotiators with a wealth of experience in this kind of work," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

US President Donald Trump has said he can end the war and has been pursuing rapprochement with Moscow.

- Ceasefire timing 'unclear' -

Putin ordered a limited, 30-day pause on strikes targeting Ukrainian energy infrastructure following a call with Trump on Tuesday.

But Zelensky has accused Moscow of continuing to hit energy facilities anyway and said Thursday that nothing had changed, "despite Putin's words".

Russia had recently struck a high-voltage power line near the city of Pokrovsk, a flashpoint for fighting in east Ukraine, an official from Ukraine's largest private energy provider told AFP.

The attack cut power to a village, leaving it completely "cut off", said Vitalii Asinenko, head of the Pokrovsk power distribution zone at DTEK.

Both sides also accused each other of blowing up a gas facility under the control of Ukraine's army in the Russian border region of Kursk earlier on Friday.

The Ukrainian source added that as of yet it was "unclear" when any ceasefire could be implemented. "There have been no reciprocal steps from the Russians," the source added.

"We need to agree on the main thing: what objects and what control. The Americans have enormous intelligence capabilities, so they see a lot," the source added.

Zelensky said the Ukrainian side would present a "list of civilian objects" that he would want included in a ceasefire.

Russia kept up its aerial attacks on Ukraine into Friday.

Zelensky called for allies to exert "joint pressure" on the Kremlin after an overnight barrage of more than 200 drones and guided bombs.

In the Black Sea city of Odesa, an AFP reporter saw the charred remains of a shopping mall destroyed in the overnight attack.

The Russian defence ministry meanwhile said Kyiv "deliberately blew up the Sudzha gas metering station, located a few hundred metres from the state border in the Kursk region."

It said the Ukrainian army had been using the facility as a logistics hub since seizing it in its shock August 2024 cross-border offensive, and blew it up as part of Ukraine's "retreat" from the area.

The defence ministry claimed Kyiv blew up the site specifically to "discredit the peace initiatives of the US president".

"Everyone can see how much we can trust the word of Zelensky and the word of other representatives of the Kyiv regime," Peskov said.

Ukraine's general staff said the claim it was behind the attack was "groundless" and said Russia had "fired artillery at the facility".

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