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00:00Well, as we understand it, the talks have now gone underway between the Ukrainian delegation
00:06led by their defence minister and the US diplomats.
00:10And at this stage, it's said to be quite technical.
00:12They're due to be drawing up a list of energy infrastructure sites which they wish to see
00:19protected under what could be a partial and limited ceasefire for 30 days, the bare minimum.
00:26There'll also be talks about, well, how the talks could proceed, because the Ukrainian
00:30and the Russian positions are so far apart.
00:33We heard the maximalist demands from Vladimir Putin or from the Kremlin readout of Putin's
00:39call with Donald Trump, him calling for Ukraine's allies to stop supplying all weapons and military
00:46intelligence.
00:47And that's something that Ukraine has said that it won't accept.
00:50So there's an awful lot of distance between the various parties at the moment.
00:55The Trump administration is said to be optimistic that they can find the middle ground.
01:00But we've been hearing over this weekend from Steve Witkoff, who is Trump's special envoy
01:05to these negotiations, and some of his remarks have caused a great deal of concern here in
01:13Ukraine.
01:14He seemed to be suggesting that it was about dividing up territory.
01:17Ukraine has said it will never recognise the regions occupied by Russia as Russian territory.
01:23So those remarks point towards a much more complicated situation indeed.
01:27But the talks have just started in Riyadh, and they are set to continue in the coming
01:32days.
01:33Now, Catherine, in the meantime, the fighting on the ground, of course, indeed suggests
01:37that peace remains quite far off.
01:39Tell us more about that.
01:42Yes, seven people were killed overnight in another massive spate of drone attacks across
01:49the country.
01:50Seven people were killed in the Kiev region, including a five-year-old child, others in
01:56cities and towns across the country, from Sumy in the north to in the Donetsk region
02:01in the east to Odessa in the south.
02:03So this continuing night after night barrage of drone and sometimes missile attacks.
02:10We've also been ourselves down at the front line in southeastern Ukraine, where we have
02:14seen people there living under constant threat from drone attacks.
02:20It's not an exaggeration to say that the skies around the front lines are literally
02:24swarming with drones, both Ukrainian, but also massive amounts of Russian drones.
02:29And so they basically terrorise the few remaining civilians who remain and make fighting very
02:34difficult, of course, for the Ukrainian troops, who spend as much time as they can undercover.
02:39This is clearly very much a drone war.
02:41We've seen that for some time, but the extent has become very clear.
02:45But the fighting is continuing along this very, very long front line, 1,000 kilometres.
02:50The latest news on that is we've heard the Ukrainian armed forces say they have retaken
02:54a village of Nadia in the Luhansk region, which is in the northeast of Ukraine, an area
03:03which had been under Russian occupation since March 2022.
03:07So that's according to the Ukrainian army.
03:10Elsewhere, we know the fighting is continuing in the southeast, around the Pokorovsk region.
03:16So those clashes are continuing.
03:18The ceasefire at this stage is not signed, and things are pretty intense down the front
03:22lines as well as in the skies over Ukraine on a nightly basis.