Kallas: I'll Represent the EU in Ukraine Talks, Whether Moscow Likes It or Not

Kaja Kallas isn't waiting for Moscow's blessing. The EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy said Friday she is ready to represent the bloc in negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, fully aware that Russia objects to her involvement. 'I know that the Russians don't want me, but do we have a say who is representing Russia? No, we don't,' she told reporters on arriving at an informal meeting of EU leaders in Dublin.

Kallas stressed that she represents all 27 EU member states and called for European foreign ministers to play a bigger part in the negotiations.

She also set a sequencing demand: a ceasefire has to come first, before any discussion of Europe's security architecture. Kallas warned that getting pulled into Russia's demands on that front would divert attention from actually ending the war.

Diplomatic traffic is picking up. US special envoy Jared Kushner said 'meaningful progress' had been made in 'understanding both sides' concerns, identifying possible solutions, and establishing a path forward.' Kushner and US envoy Steve Witkoff travelled to Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, then to Dublin to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, after trilateral talks with Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Abu Dhabi. Both sides have agreed to expand the next round, according to Kushner.

On the ground, the fighting hasn't paused. Ukraine's Air Force said Moscow launched 117 airstrikes overnight with drones of various types, and that Ukrainian air defenses shot down or suppressed 80 of them, with strikes hitting 24 locations. Russia's Defense Ministry said its air defenses downed 1,198 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory during the same window.

Russian attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure have left consumers without electricity across 12 regions, First Deputy Energy Minister Artem Nekrasov said, naming Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Zhytomyr, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Odessa, Rivne, Sumy, Kharkiv, Khmelnytskyi and Chernihiv. Repair crews are working to restore power, but continued attacks and air raid alerts are slowing them down, and scheduled hourly outages are in effect across most Ukrainian regions.