Secret energy talks between Ukraine and Russia leak out despite denials

Recent info shows Ukraine and Russia might be talking about stopping power-plant attacks (even though nobody wants to say it out loud). The back-channel chats started about two months ago with Qatar helping out as a go-between

Volodymyr Zelenskiy thinks this could be a good first-step: “If we can agree on energy stuff maybe we can talk about other things too“ The Kremlins Dmitry Peskov however just waves it off saying its fake-news

The situation with power-plants is pretty rough — Ukraine lost more than half of its energy-making stuff since the war kicked-off in early-22. The EU is trying to help fix things up: they want to get 2.5 GW (thats about 15% of what Ukraine needs) back up-and-running

Both sides have been hitting each-others power stuff lately; Ukraine got some new long-range drones that can reach deep into Russia and hit things like oil-places and air-fields. Russia keeps targeting Ukraineʼs power-grid which makes life super-hard for regular people

The first try at these talks got messed-up when Ukraine did that thing in Kursk (which is right next to Ukraine) but now theyʼre trying again. Some smart-people who know whats going on say its super early days — but at least theyre talking

The whole peace-talk thing is complicated though: Moscow says they want peace but Ukraine doesnt like their rules. The EUʼs boss Ursula von der Leyen is worried about all this power-stuff getting broken and wants to help fix it