Ukrainian officials head to US for peace talks while dramatic footage shows Russian oil tankers being hit

Ukraine’s representatives are preparing for renewed peace talks in the US, while dramatic footage has shown Russian tankers being hit by naval drones.

President Zelenskyy said a delegation headed by national security chief Rustem Umerov was on its way to “swiftly and substantively work out the steps needed to end the war”.

They are due to be greeted by US secretary of state Marco Rubio, Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, and the US president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, a senior US official told Reuters news agency.

After the US-Ukraine talks, an American delegation is expected to travel to Moscow to meet President Putin.

It comes after Mr Trump released a 28-point proposal last week that would hand swathes of land to Russia and limit the size of Kyiv’s military.

It was widely seen as heavily favouring Russia and led Mr Zelenskyy to swiftly engage with American negotiators.

President Trump said on Tuesday his plan had been “fine-tuned”.

In his evening address on Saturday, the Ukrainian leader said: “The American side is demonstrating a constructive approach, and in the coming days it is feasible to flesh out the steps to determine how to bring the war to a dignified end.”

Mr Zelenskyy’s team in the US is without his former chief of staff and lead negotiator, Andrii Yermak, as he quit on Friday after officials raided his home amid a corruption scandal.

Tankers hit by ‘Sea Baby’ drones

Ukrainian drones were shown hitting two of Russia‘s so-called “shadow fleet” oil tankers in the Black Sea in footage released on Saturday.

Friday’s attack was carried out by the country’s security service and its navy, an official told Reuters. They said both ships “sustained critical damage” that took them out of service.

A security source told Associated Press that domestically-made “Sea Baby” drones were used.

The tankers were under sanctions and heading to a Russian port to load up with oil destined for foreign markets, the official said.

They have been identified as the Kairos and Virat.

The 274m-long Kairos suffered an explosion and caught fire en route from Egypt to Russia on Friday, Turkey’s transport ministry said. The crew was evacuated.

The Virat was reportedly struck about 35 nautical miles offshore.

It was attacked by unmanned vessels and sustained minor damage to its starboard side, the Turkish ministry said.

Russia deploys a fleet of often ageing, uninsured and unmarked tankers to circumvent sanctions on its oil exports, which continue to help pay for the Ukraine war.

Another Ukrainian attack halted operations at an oil terminal near the Russian port of Novorossiysk on Saturday.

Andriy Kovalenko, from Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, said special forces were responsible.

“Naval drones managed to destroy one of the three oil tanker berths of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium in the Novorossiysk area,” he wrote on Telegram.

Six killed in aerial attacks on Ukraine

Russia carried out another onslaught on the Ukrainian capital overnight into Saturday, firing 36 cruise and ballistic missiles and launching around 600 drones.

Officials said three people were killed in and around Kyiv, two in the Dnipropetrovsk region and one in a midday attack in Kherson region in the south.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko said 29 others were injured in Kyiv, largely due to falling debris from intercepted drones hitting buildings.

The attacks also hit Ukrainian energy facilities and left hundreds of thousands without power in the capital. Supplies have since been restored.

Targeting such infrastructure has become a familiar tactic from Russia over the winter, in what Ukraine officials say is the “weaponising” of the cold.