Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a delegation from Kyiv will hold talks with US officials in Saudi Arabia next week amid intense diplomatic efforts to bring an end to Europe's largest and deadliest conflict since World War II.
During a visit to Norway on March 20, Zelenskyy said Ukraine would prepare a list of buildings and facilities to make clear what it considers to be civilian infrastructure after Kyiv and Moscow agreed to a partial cease-fire.
During a phone call with US President Donald Trump on March 18, Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to halt strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure, only to violate it hours later.
"I don't want to have a different understanding of what the parties would agree to," Zelenskyy said, adding the Ukrainian delegation would not hold face-to-face talks with a Russian group of officials who will also be in Saudi Arabia on March 24.
Trump and Zelenskyy spoke on March 19 to discuss the outcome of the US president's call a day earlier with Putin. Trump sought to get the Kremlin leader to agree to a 30-day cease-fire after having secured Zelenskyy's backing on condition that Russia do the same.
Putin rejected a full cease-fire but accepted a halt in strikes on Ukrainian energy and civilian infrastructure, according to a US readout of the call.
SEE ALSO: So What Did Putin and Trump Agree On? A Partial Ukraine Cease-Fire, At Least.During his call with Zelenskyy, Trump promised to look into acquiring more Patriot air-defense missile systems for Ukraine. Meanwhile, Zelenskyy agreed not to target Russian energy assets for 30 days.
Ukraine has struggled to protect its cities from Russian attacks due to a lack of air defense, and Zelenskyy wrote that another wave of strikes overnight showed Putin's comments were just "propaganda."
"Russian strikes on Ukraine do not stop, despite their propaganda claims. Every day and every night, nearly a hundred or more drones are launched, along with ongoing missile attacks. With each such launch, the Russians expose to the world their true attitude towards peace," Zelenskyy wrote in a post on X on March 20.
SEE ALSO: Putin Vows To Halt Ukraine Energy Strikes, But Zelenskyy Says Russia Seeks To 'Drag Out War'Ukraine's air force said on March 20 that its air defenses shot down 75 out of 171 drones launched by Russia in an overnight attack, with 63 other drones redirected from their targets with the use of electronic warfare.
Ukraine's National Police said that at least 10 people were injured in an overnight air attack on the central Ukrainian city of Kropyvnytskiy, including four children.
The strike damaged residential buildings and private homes. Several of the injured were hospitalized after receiving emergency medical care.
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Central Ukrainian City Endures Its Biggest Ever Drone Attack
Russia, meanwhile, said that it had downed 132 Ukrainian drones overnight, with authorities in the Saratov region confirming that an airfield close to the town of Engels, which hosts a strategic bomber base, had been set on fire.
Ukraine's military confirmed it had launched an attack against the base.
Russia's aviation authority Rosaviatsia also said arrivals and departures at the Samara and Saratov airports had been temporarily suspended.
Zelenskyy arrived in Norway as the intensity of peace talks continues to gain momentum.
"Norway supports Ukraine in its fight to defend itself and is contributing to the effort to achieve a lasting, just peace in the country. I look forward to constructive discussions on how Norway can best provide assistance to Ukraine in both the short term and the long term," Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Store said at a press conference with Zelenskyy.
Trump suggested during his call with Zelenskyy that the United States take ownership of Ukraine's power plants as he seeks to bridge a wide divide between Moscow and Kyiv and secure a full cease-fire.
Trump told Zelenskyy that US ownership of Ukraine's electrical supply and nuclear power plants "would be the best protection for that infrastructure," according to a White House readout of the March 19 call.
The proposal reflects Trump's belief that US ownership of Ukrainian assets would effectively serve as a security guarantee for the embattled country because Russia would presumably refrain from targeting them out of fear of escalation with the United States.
Zelenskyy said he and Trump discussed the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine during the phone call. He said he told Trump that Kyiv would be ready to discuss US involvement in modernizing and investing in the plant if it is returned to Ukraine.
Zelenskyy, however, on March 20 dismissed the idea that the plant could be owned by the US, adding that the critical facility is officially a property of the Ukrainian people.
"If it's not under Ukrainian control, it wouldn't work for anybody. It's illegal [...] If the Americans want to take it from Russia, invest in it, and modernize it -- that's a different question," he told journalists in Norway.
Kyiv's demand for security guarantees lies at the heart of the shuttle diplomacy between Ukraine, Russia, and the United States to secure a peace deal. Zelenskyy wants any final peace deal to include Western security guarantees for Ukraine to deter Russia from invading again, but Trump has so far refused to commit the United States to the country's defense.
Zelenskyy Has 'Positive' Contact With Trump
Trump has made ending the war in Ukraine, which has killed or wounded more than a million people, a top priority for his administration.
However, Moscow and Kyiv remain so far apart on key issues -- such as land exchanges and security guarantees for Ukraine -- that the Trump administration will need to use various carrots and sticks if it hopes to bring them together.
In a social media post, Trump said the goal of his call with Zelenskyy was "to align both Russia and Ukraine in terms of their requests and needs."
Putin has agreed to continue talks with the United States toward achieving a full cease-fire. US negotiators will meet with Ukrainian and Russian counterparts in the coming days to work on extending the partial cease-fire to the Black Sea.
In a show of good faith by both sides, Russia and Ukraine on March 19 each swapped 175 prisoners in one of the largest exchanges of the war.
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Prisoner Exchange Brings Home 175 Ukrainian Soldiers, Embraced By Tearful Families
Experts say that Putin has not given up on his goals of subjugating Ukraine and will seek to drag out the talks while his forces have the advantage on the battlefield. Russia wants to fully control the four regions of Ukraine it claims to have annexed in 2022. It would fall short of that goal were it to agree to a full-cease fire now.
Trump has threatened to impose tough sanctions and tariffs on Russia if it obstructs the path toward peace deal, but experts question whether the US president would come down hard on Russia considering he values his relationship with Putin.
“Trump has shown that he can pressure Zelenskyy. Is he willing and able to pressure Putin? If not, then what is he going to do? Putin is making it clear that he’s not changing his goals,” Mark Katz, a Russia expert and professor emeritus of government and politics at George Mason University, told RFE/RL.
Russia has regularly targeted Ukraine's power infrastructure with missiles and drones in an attempt to break the will of the Ukrainian people by denying them light and heat in the winter.
Ukraine has often retaliated against the strikes on its power system by targeting Russian oil assets, such as refineries and storage facilities. Russia's war machine is heavily dependent on oil export revenues, which account for about a third of federal budget revenues.
Residents of Kyiv told RFE/RL that they did not put much faith in the agreement between Washington and Moscow.
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Ukrainians React To Trump-Putin Cease-Fire Phone Call
Zelenskyy has said Ukraine is ready to send a team for further cease-fire discussions with the United States, while reiterating Kyiv will not recognize Russian sovereignty over any occupied Ukrainian territory -- a condition for any peace agreement that Putin has voiced several times.