+++ News in the Ukraine war +++: Zelensky praises US mediators

Before the resumption of talks in Abu Dhabi to end the war in Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was “satisfied” with a change in the attitude of US mediators. "I see changes. I'm very happy with what I hear. We'll see what's possible," Zelensky told reporters in Copenhagen on Tuesday.

In the first talks since February between representatives of Ukraine and Russia under US mediation, US envoy Jared Kushner brought up a “new” security architecture for Europe in the run-up to the first round of talks - a demand that Russia had also repeatedly raised. There was no more talk of that later. A U.S. official said both Kyiv and Moscow had “flexibilized their positions a little” in advance. Kushner also said the differences had narrowed.

The Russian and Ukrainian delegations sat opposite each other in the negotiating room, with US mediators Steve Witkoff and Kushner as well as Emirati Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Sajed Al Nahjan sitting at the front. The talks lasted four hours on the first day of the trial. According to Russian delegation circles, they will continue on Wednesday at 12:00 p.m. (local time, 9:00 a.m. CET). (afp)

The South Korean presidential advisor for peace diplomacy, Song Young Gil, has criticized Europe's Russia policy in an unusually harsh manner and called for a rapprochement with Moscow. There is a kind of “Russophobia” in Europe, Song said at a forum at the National Assembly in Seoul. He also criticized the fact that Russia was portrayed “like Hitler”. Regarding a possible end to the Ukrainian war, Song said that South Korea should participate in the reconstruction of both Ukraine and Russia and focus on its own interests. (dpa)

According to a media report in Russia, the authorities have arrested two people in the Kaliningrad region who are said to be spies for the Polish secret service. They are accused of collecting information about military facilities, the Russian news agency Interfax reported, citing the domestic secret service FSB. In addition, seven Polish and three Russian citizens were officially warned about suspected contacts with Polish security services. The Russian exclave Kaliningrad is located on the Baltic Sea and borders NATO members Poland and Lithuania. (rtr)

According to authorities, two people were killed by debris from an intercepted drone in the Smolensk region of western Russia. The drone debris hit a residential building, the Tass news agency reported, citing Governor Vasily Anokhin. The Smolensk region borders Belarus. (rtr)

A drone attack on the Russian Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga sparked a fire, according to local authorities. Emergency services are busy extinguishing the fire, wrote the governor of the Leningrad region, Aleksandr Drozdenko, on Telegram on Wednesday. Ust-Luga is one of the most important oil terminals in western Russia and has been attacked by Ukraine several times in the past.

While representatives of both sides are negotiating ways to end the conflict in Abu Dhabi, fighting between Russia and Ukraine continues. Drozdenko reported “ongoing” fighting in the Leningrad region overnight. At the region's main airport, Pulkovo Airport near Saint Petersburg, around 18 flights were delayed or canceled, according to reports from the state news agency Tass.

Ukraine has increased its drone attacks on Russian energy infrastructure over the past 18 months. The aim is to reduce the Kremlin's income from oil and thus turn off the money supply to finance the war. According to Ukraine, Russia is massively attacking the Ukrainian power grid from the air, leaving residents without power in freezing temperatures. (afp)

Latvia, Lithuania and Finland took far-reaching security measures on Wednesday due to the threat from drones. Early on Wednesday morning, residents in several regions of both countries were called upon to seek shelter, the authorities said. The reason for this was unknown drones that had entered the airspace over neighboring Russia or Belarus. NATO air surveillance fighter planes then took off. According to Lithuania's National Crisis Management Center, the warning also applied to the country's second largest city, Kaunas, with around 300,000 residents. There were initially no reports of injuries.

The Finnish Armed Forces said on Platform X that temporary airspace and shipping restrictions were imposed in the eastern Gulf of Finland on Wednesday. “This is a precautionary measure to ensure the safety of bystanders and to allow authorities to deter possible drones,” the statement said. The latest incidents were triggered by Ukrainian drone attacks on northwest Russia, where important export facilities on the Baltic Sea and a large oil refinery are located. (rtr)

Ukraine and South Korea say they are moving towards normalizing their relations again after a diplomatic dispute over North Korean prisoners of war. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha said on Ukrainian television late on Tuesday that he had a good conversation with his South Korean counterpart Cho Hyun on the sidelines of a G7 ministerial meeting. The recent unpleasant events were discussed openly. Sybiha also thanked the government in Seoul for its past and future support as well as for its support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity. The South Korean Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that Cho had expressed hope that all outstanding issues would be resolved smoothly. In addition, Seoul will continue to examine humanitarian aid and support for the reconstruction of Ukraine.

South Korea recalled its ambassador from Kyiv last month. Previously, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the UN General Assembly that Ukraine had handed over two captured North Korean soldiers to South Korea. According to the government in Seoul, this disclosure violated a confidentiality agreement intended to protect soldiers and their families in North Korea. Sybiha had attributed the dispute to different interpretations of the agreement and said that Ukraine had fulfilled all its obligations. (rtr)

Russia says it shot down 92 drones over the Leningrad region northwest of Moscow. Governor Alexander Drozdenko announced this on the short message service Telegram. The region is home to the ports of Ust-Luga, Primorsk and Vysotsk, which are important for Russian oil and grain exports across the Baltic Sea, as well as the Kirishi refinery, the second largest in the country. (rtr)

A drone attack on critical infrastructure has caused power outages and affected water and heat supplies in parts of the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih. ‌As the head of the city's Defense Council, Oleksandr Wilkul, announced on the short message service Telegram, the water and sewage systems were stabilized with generators. The heat supply is becoming more difficult, and houses, schools and kindergartens have also been damaged. Rescue workers and supply services are on duty. Kryvyi Rih is an industrial metropolis and the hometown of President Volodymyr Zelensky. The latest attack ‌came against the backdrop of new peace efforts and the first Russian-Ukrainian talks in nine months in Abu Dhabi. (rtr)

According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, on the first day of negotiations in Abu Dhabi, negotiators from Kyiv and Moscow primarily discussed a prisoner exchange. “One would like to exchange 1,000 for 1,000, possibly 1,500 for 1,500, a big exchange,” Zelensky said at a news conference in Copenhagen.

The US delegation will travel to Russia “with this agenda” after the negotiations, Zelensky said. The Russian side also raised the territorial issue. “This is a question at the level of the heads of state,” Zelensky emphasized, but his negotiators still had a mandate to discuss this issue. The second day of talks, the “main day,” will focus more on de-escalation in the energy sector and in the Black Sea, prisoner exchanges and a possible three-way meeting at presidential level between Ukraine, Russia and the USA. (dpa)

Former Green Party leader Robert Habeck does not believe that the election defeat in the midterms will have an impact on US President Donald Trump's foreign policy. “This is the area that is least affected by the midterm elections,” said the former economics minister on the ARD program “Maischberger”. Habeck added: "And it is obvious that Trump and Putin now understand each other better than Trump and Zelensky. I would say that the Trump administration has betrayed Ukraine."

He doesn't have a good feeling that the representatives of these two presidents are negotiating the fate of Ukraine and therefore Europe. That could “go completely wrong.” The US-mediated talks in Abu Dhabi, scheduled for two days, are the first direct negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv in more than eight months. When Sandra Maischberger asked whether it could happen that Trump and Putin would literally divide the world between themselves, Habeck said that he believed that the two of them would very much like to divide the world between themselves - and then they would add Xi Jinping to the mix. (dpa)

According to a special report by the European Court of Auditors, the EU trade sanctions imposed on Russia because of the Ukraine war are clearly falling short of their potential. Legal ambiguities and different approaches to enforcement by national authorities affect the uniform and effective implementation of sanctions, according to the new analysis. In addition, gaps in monitoring by the EU Commission and the inconsistent use of instruments for the exchange of information also contribute to the deficits.

As an example, the Court of Auditors cites the use of ambiguous or vague terms in sanction regulations. This allows Member States to have different interpretations and poses the risk that economic actors will exploit loopholes across borders. (dpa)