The Albany Gazette - US envoy set for Kyiv talks after Trump rips Zelensky

Speaking on Tuesday, after Russian and US officials met in Saudi Arabia for their first high-level talks in over three years without Ukraine taking part, Trump appeared to blame Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for having "started" the war.

"Today I heard, 'oh, well, we weren't invited.' Well, you've been there for three years... You should have never started it. You could have made a deal," Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

Zelensky had chided the US-Russia talks for not including Kyiv, saying efforts to end the war must be "fair and involve European countries".

Trump's special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, arrived in Kyiv by train Wednesday morning in what he said was a mission to "sit and listen" to Kyiv's concerns.

"We understand the need for security guarantees... Part of my mission is to sit and listen and say: what are your concerns?" Kellogg said in a video posted by Ukraine's Suspilne news outlet.

Russia and the United States agreed on Tuesday to establish teams to negotiate a path to ending the war.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday praised the meetings in Saudi Arabia as a "very important step" towards a peace settlement.

- Trump wants Ukraine election -

Trump has upended US foreign policy since coming to office last month, making support for Ukraine dependant on access to its rare minerals while echoing Russian President Vladimir Putin's positions on the conflict.

In his press conference on Tuesday, Trump pressed Zelensky to hold elections, one of Moscow's key demands for a peace deal.

"It's been a long time since we've had an election," said Trump. "That's not a Russian thing, that's something coming from me, from other countries."

Zelensky was elected in 2019 for a five-year term, but has remains leader under martial law imposed following the Russian invasion.

Trump also claimed the Ukrainian leader's approval rating was "at four percent".

Zelensky's popularity has eroded since the war began, but the percentage of Ukrainians who trust him has never dipped below 50 percent since the invasion, according to the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS).

Borys Filatov, the mayor of the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, appeared to push back at Trump's comments.

"We may or may not like Zelensky. We can scold him or we can praise him. We can condemn his actions or applaud them. Because he is OUR President," he said.

"And not a single lying creature in Moscow, Washington, or anywhere else has the right to open their mouths against him."

Trump's latest remarks are unlikely to allay fears among some European leaders, already worried Washington will make serious concessions to Moscow and re-write the continent's security arrangement in a Cold War-style deal.

In Paris, France's President Emmanuel Macron was to host another meeting in Paris on Ukraine Wednesday. In comments Tuesday to the French media after the US-Russia talks, he suggested Trump could restart "useful dialogue" with Putin.

- Trump wants Ukraine election -

Kellog's arrival came hours after Russian strikes in the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa overnight left tens of thousands of people without power, Zelensky said on social media.

"At least 160,000 Odesa residents are now without heat and electricity," he said.

"We must remember that Russia is run by pathological liars and cannot be trusted -- we must put pressure on them for the sake of peace."

The regional governor said four people had been wounded, including a child.

"As a result of a massive enemy strike on a densely populated area of the city, there is no electricity, water, and heating in a large part of the residential quarters," Gennadiy Trukhanov said on Telegram.

An air force statement said Odesa had been hit by an overnight attack, adding that of 167 drones, 106 had been intercepted while another 56 were "lost in the area" without causing damage.

For the past three years, Russia has been targeting Ukraine's energy infrastructure, as well as its towns and villages.

In Brussels, EU diplomats said member states had on Wednesday agreed a new round of sanctions against Russia. It will be formally adopted by EU foreign ministers on Monday, the third anniversary of Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine.

(F.Jackson--TAG)