Ukrainian team heads to US for peace talks
• Kyiv plunges into darkness as grid hit in Russian strikes; three killed
• Moscow’s oil terminal halts operations after Black Sea drone attack
KYIV/MOSCOW: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that a delegation headed by security council secretary Rustem Umerov was on its way to the United States to continue talks on an agreement to end Russia’s war.
Umerov has been put in charge of the Ukrainian delegation after the previous lead negotiator, Zelensky’s powerful chief of staff Andriy Yermak, resigned on Friday hours after anti-corruption detectives searched his apartment.
Zelensky said he expected that the results of previous meetings with the US in Geneva, which took place last weekend, would now be “hammered out” on Sunday.
Those meetings allowed Ukraine to present a counter-offer to proposals laid out by US Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll to leaders in Kyiv almost two weeks ago.
“Rustem delivered a report today, and the task is clear: to swiftly and substantively work out the steps needed to end the war,” Zelensky wrote on X.
Yermak told the New York Post hours after his resignation that he was “going to the front”. “I am an honest and decent person,” he said.
Russian oil terminal
One of Russia’s largest oil terminals halted operations on Saturday following an attack by sea drones.
The Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), a group that includes US oil majors Chevron and ExxonMobil and which owns the terminal, called the strike a “terrorist attack”.
Ukraine, which did not comment on the incident, has sought to punch back against its neighbour as the war grinds through its fourth year.
“As a result of a targeted terrorist attack by unmanned boats at 4:06am Moscow time (6:06 PKT) single Mooring Point 2 (SMP-2) sustained significant damage,” the CPC said in a statement on Telegram.
“Further operation of SMP-2 is not possible. Loadings at the terminal will be carried out in accordance with established rules once the drone threats are lifted,” it added.
The CPC pipeline, which begins in Kazakhstan and ends at the terminal, is a major conduit for Kazakh oil and one of the world’s largest by volume, handling around one percent of global supplies.
A Ukrainian source, meanwhile, claimed responsibility for attacks on two oil tankers in the Black Sea allegedly covertly transporting sanctioned Russian oil.
The two ships, the Virat and the Kairos, were rocked by explosions off Turkey’s coast late Friday, according to the Turkish transport ministry. One of the two was struck again early Saturday, the ministry said.
“Modernised Sea Baby naval drones successfully targeted the vessels,” a source in Ukraine’s SBU security service told AFP.
The source shared a video that purported to show sea drones gliding towards the two ships, before sparking explosions.
Kazakhstan’s energy ministry said on Saturday it had activated a plan to redirect oil exports to alternative routes after the CPC halted operations following the Ukrainian naval drone attack. Kazakhstan’s energy ministry called the attack unacceptable.
Strikes on Ukraine
The attack came as vast Russian overnight attack on Ukraine killed three people and wounded nearly 30, officials said on Saturday, with more than 600,000 households left without power after strikes on the grid.
President Zelensky said Russia had launched around 36 missiles and nearly 600 drones in the attack.
AFP journalists in Kyiv reported a night of intense explosions that kept many in the capital awake.
In the morning, reporters saw burned out cars and apartment buildings charred from fire.
Russia, which denies targeting civilians, says it struck energy infrastructure powering the Ukraine’s military-industrial complex.
Published in Dawn, November 30th, 2025
