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A Russian missile strike on port infrastructure in Odesa, in southern Ukraine, killed eight people and wounded 27, Ukraine’s emergency service said on Saturday, as a Kremlin envoy was set to travel to Florida for talks on a U.S.-proposed plan to end the nearly four-year war.
The discussions are part of the Trump administration’s months-long push for peace that also included meetings with Ukrainian and European officials in Berlin earlier this week. Ukraine’s chief negotiator said late Friday that his delegation had completed separate meetings in the U.S. with American and European partners.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said much will depend on the U.S. posture after discussions with the Russians.
Speaking at a news conference in Kyiv with Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro, Zelenskyy said that “the key question remains how the United States responds after consultations with the Russians. At this point, I honestly don’t know, but I will know later today.”
Ukraine and Portugal signed an agreement to establish joint production of maritime drones, Zelenskyy said. “This is one of the most promising areas of defence co-operation. What matters now is delivering results, and all parts of Europe must have sufficient capabilities to counter any threats,” he said.
Some of those wounded in Odesa were on a bus at the centre of the strike late Friday, the emergency service said in a post on the messaging service Telegram. Trucks caught fire in the parking lot, and cars were also damaged.
The port was struck with ballistic missiles, said Oleh Kiper, the head of the Odesa region.
Moscow did not immediately acknowledge reports of the attack.
The Russian Defence Ministry said Saturday that over the previous day, it had struck unspecified “transport and storage infrastructure used by the Ukrainian armed forces,” along with energy facilities and those supplying Kyiv’s war effort.
Elsewhere, Ukrainian drones hit a Russian oil rig, the military patrol ship Okhotnik and other facilities, Ukraine’s General Staff said in a statement Saturday.
It said the ship was patrolling in the Caspian Sea near an oil and gas production platform. The extent of the damage was still being clarified, it said.
The drilling platform at the Filanovsky oil and gas field was also hit. The facility is operated by Russian oil giant Lukoil. Ukrainian drones also struck a radar system in the Krasnoselsky area of Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
There was no immediate comment from the Russian government or Lukoil. The company is one of two Russian oil majors — alongside state-owned Gazprom — targeted by recent U.S. sanctions that aim to deprive Moscow of oil export revenue that helps it sustain the war.
Kyiv has used similar arguments to justify months of long-range strikes on Russian oil infrastructure, which it says both funds and directly fuels the Kremlin’s all-out invasion, soon to enter its fifth year.
Trump’s peace push set to continue Saturday
U.S. President Donald Trump has unleashed an extensive diplomatic push to end the war, but his efforts have run into sharply conflicting demands by Moscow and Kyiv.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has recently signalled he is digging in on his maximalist demands on Ukraine, as Moscow’s troops inch forward on the battlefield despite huge losses.
On Friday, Putin voiced confidence that the Kremlin would achieve its goals militarily if Kyiv doesn’t agree to Russia’s conditions in peace talks.
Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered his hours-long year-end news conference in which he repeated dubious claims about Ukraine starting the ongoing war between the two countries and also claims Russia is ready for peace.
European Union leaders on Friday agreed to provide 90 billion euros ($106 billion US) to Ukraine to meet its military and economic needs for the next two years, although they failed to bridge differences with Belgium that would have allowed them to use frozen Russian assets to raise the funds. Instead, they were borrowed on capital markets.
After almost four years of war, the International Monetary Fund estimates that Ukraine will need 137 billion euros ($161 billion US) in 2026 and 2027. The government in Kyiv is on the verge of bankruptcy and desperately needs the money by spring.
Meanwhile, Kirill Dmitriev, the Kremlin’s envoy, is set to meet with Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner in Miami on Saturday, according to a U.S. official. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to preview a meeting that hasn’t yet been publicly announced.
The official said Witkoff and Kushner will sit down with Dmitriev, after meetings with Ukrainian and European officials in Berlin for talks on U.S. security guarantees for Kyiv, territorial concessions and other aspects of the American-authored plan.
Ukraine’s chief negotiator, Rustem Umerov, said late Friday that a Ukrainian delegation had met with American and European partners in the U.S. He gave few details but said they agreed to continue “joint work in the near future.”
Asked about the meeting in Miami, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Thursday that Moscow was preparing for contacts with the U.S. to learn about the results of the meetings in Berlin, but he didn’t give details.
