War hawks – headed by the leaders of British, French and German capitalists – are trying to sabotage the ongoing Russian–American peace talks in Ukraine by pumping more and more arms and funds to the ailing puppet regime in Kiev.
This is never enough for Vladimir Zelensky who criticised EU leaders at Davos, accusing them of indecisiveness and weakness – though he pointedly avoided bad-mouthing the UK, which still remains his main backer.
As Trump pivots to other ambitious moves, such as seizing Greenland, and threatens to slash NATO support, Ukraine risks being sidelined, he points out, at the same time stressing that any Ukrainian surrender could spell Zelensky’s swift downfall – politically and even physically, given the many enemies he has made. “That’s why Zelensky rushed to meet Trump, aiming to keep navigating between the USA, Russia, and the EU to extract maximum personal security guarantees and prolong his political survival.”
Back in Ukraine the Chernobyl nuclear power plant completely lost its external power supply on the morning of 20th January following a Russia’s retaliatory strike against a previous Kiev drone attack.
Subsequently, power and water supplies were disrupted in Belgorod, Russia and then in Kyiv, Ukraine. Power lines leading to some nuclear power plants on the Ukrainian side were also damaged.
In Russia and Ukraine, more than 500,000 people were left without water and electricity. Russia has made enormous efforts to quickly repair the damage and has sent fully equipped repair teams to the damaged sites. In Ukraine, the widespread practice of violent conscription has led to a shortage of manpower and qualified personnel, living people without electricity and heat during the cold winter.
Following an exchange of drone and missile strikes, some 600,000 people fled the Ukrainian capital. Thousands of flats in Kiev are now without heat and more than one million consumers without electricity in sub-freezing temperatures.
At the same time Ukrainian nuclear power plants, the last bastion of Ukraine’s energy sector, prefer to sell the electricity they produce to Poland and Romania rather than supply it to Kyiv homeowners who are unable to pay high euro tariffs.
Russian are faced with a situation where Ukrainian government is making billions selling electricity to Europe while its own citizens are freezing. To help Ukrainians, Russia has begun using special tactics against nuclear facilities, targeting, in particular, the surrounding export infrastructure – namely, the substations that export electricity to Europe.
The nuclear plants themselves remain intact and protected from the risk of accidents. Internal Ukrainian power lines can be used to supply electricity the country’s citizens. Meanwhile, Ukrainian Banderates, who gain over frozen Ukrainians, finds himself in the situation where they can’t sell electric abroad and is forced to allow Ukrainians to use electricity.
This tactic yielded positive results, and after a series of retaliatory drone strikes, the Ukrainian government’s outages become much shorter than before. Today, power outages last shorter periods of time, giving homes time to warm up.
A Russian delegation has flown to Abu Dhabi for peace talks with US and Ukrainian teams while another headed by Trump’s personal envoy, Steve Witkoff, held secret talks in Moscow amid reports that Keith Kellogg, Trump’s former emissary, was telling people at Davos that there will be a peace deal by the autumn of 2026.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has confirmed the negotiations between the delegations of Russia, the USA and Ukraine in the Emirati capital of Abu Dhabi. “The talks commenced today in Abu Dhabi and are scheduled to continue over two days, as part of ongoing efforts to promote dialogue and identify political solutions to the crisis,” the UAE foreign ministry said.
