A new round of US-brokered peace talks between Ukraine and Russia, scheduled for this week, has not been canceled following the weekend strikes on Iran by the US and Israel, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
Mr Zelensky said that Kyiv was considering a new location for the talks, which had been due to take place on 5 March and 6 March in Abu Dhabi, and that Turkey or Switzerland were possibilities.
"Due to the ongoing hostilities, we cannot confirm that the meeting will take place in Abu Dhabi but, nevertheless, no one has cancelled the meeting," he told reporters in a briefing on WhatsApp.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was in Russia's interests to continue peace talks with Ukraine and that Moscow's preference was still to reach a diplomatic settlement to end the four-year war.
US President Donald Trump has been pushing both Kyiv and Moscow to find a way to end the conflict.
But, despite multiple rounds of talks, Ukraine and Russia remain far apart in their positions.
Mr Zelensky reiterated his refusal to cede to Moscow's demand that Ukraine withdraw from the remaining 20% of the eastern Donetsk region that Russia has been unable to conquer.
Mr Zelensky said Ukraine's position was growing stronger as it had survived the critical cold winter months and remained resilient despite intense Russian drone and missile attacks on its energy infrastructure.
Hostilities in the Middle East had so far no impact on weapons supplies to Ukraine from its allies,
Mr Zelensky said: "But, of course, we understand that a long war – if it is to belong – and the intensity of the fighting will affect the amount of air defence equipment we receive."
He said that Russia was preparing a new wave of attacks on infrastructure, logistics and water supplies, adding that ensuring sufficient deliveries of air defence weaponry remained a key challenge for Kyiv.
"Ukraine was ready to share its experience in air defence but he had no direct requests from Britain or other partners to do so for now," he added.
Ukraine hits key Russian oil terminal after US warning
Ukraine struck an oil terminal in the southern Russian port of Novorossiysk earlier today, the Ukrainian army said, several days after the US was reported to have warned Kyiv not to attack its interests at the port.
Ukraine hit the Sheskharis terminal last November, as well as the nearby Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) terminal, which handles the bulk of Kazakhstan's oil exports.
The CPC is partly owned by US oil majors Chevron and ExxonMobil, and handles up to one percent of the world's oil supplies.
The US State Department told Ukraine to stop attacking its interests at the port following those attacks last year, Ukraine's ambassador to the United States said last week, according to US media reports.
It was not immediately clear when the United States made the warning, or which parts of the port it did not wish Ukraine to attack.
Novorossiysk handles around a fifth of Russia's crude oil shipments and is the country's largest export hub on the Black Sea.
Unverified videos posted on Russian social media purported to show a fire burning at the port, as well as a projectile streaking across the night sky.
"During the night of 2 March, units of the Ukrainian Defense Forces struck the Sheskharis oil terminal and the Novorossiysk naval base in Russia's Krasnodar Krai," the Ukrainian army said on Facebook.
"A large-scale fire has been recorded on the site."
The attack wounded five people, the governor of Russia's Krasnodar region said in a post on Telegram, without mentioning the oil terminal.
A state of emergency was declared in the city, he added.
At least five killed in Russian overnight strikes in Ukraine
Russian strikes overnight killed at least five people in Ukraine as Moscow presses its war despite a push for negotiations led by the United States, Ukrainian authorities said.
Three people were killed in the embattled eastern city of Kramatorsk, a Ukrainian stronghold that Russian forces are advancing towards, the head of the city's military administration said.
The body of a 55-year-old man separately was found in the rubble of a house in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, while a woman was killed in the northern Chernigiv region, according to local officials.
Meanwhile the Kremlin said that it was in Russia's own interests to continue peace talks with Ukraine and that Moscow's preference was still to reach a diplomatic settlement to end the fighting.
Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, sparking the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War II, leading to hundreds of thousands of military and civilian deaths on both sides of the war.
Mr Zelensky said he hoped negotiations with Russian officials scheduled in Abu Dhabi would go ahead, while backing alternative venues due to the conflict.
"The meeting was envisaged to take place between the 5th and 8th, tentatively on March 5-6. The meeting was planned in Abu Dhabi," Mr Zelensky told reporters, adding that the "important" talks should be held.
"If there are difficulties with Abu Dhabi because of missiles and drones, then I think we have Turkey, we have Switzerland," he said.
"We will definitely support any of these three venues for the meeting."
