Zelenskyy has announced that an upcoming discussion with another leader will focus on securing guarantees for Ukraine, with a complex 20-point plan nearly finalized at 90% completion.

He expressed optimism earlier on platform X, suggesting significant progress could be achieved by the year’s end before providing specifics about the forthcoming meeting.

These remarks followed Zelenskyy’s positive acknowledgment of a “good conversation” held on Thursday with US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of former President Trump.

Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov revealed on Friday that the Kremlin had maintained communication with US officials since Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev met US envoys in Florida over the weekend.

Peskov noted that both sides agreed to keep the dialogue ongoing.

Trump has unleashed a diplomatic push to end Russia’s all-out war, which began on February 24, 2022, but his efforts have run into sharply conflicting demands by Moscow and Kyiv.

Zelenskyy said on Tuesday that he would be willing to withdraw troops from Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland as part of a plan to end the war, if Russia also pulls back and the area becomes a demilitarised zone monitored by international forces.

Though Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday that there had been “slow but steady progress” in the peace talks, Russia has given no indication that it will agree to any kind of withdrawal from land it has seized.

In fact, Moscow has insisted that Ukraine relinquish the remaining territory it still holds in the Donbas — an ultimatum that Ukraine has rejected. Russia has captured most of Luhansk and about 70 per cent of Donetsk — the two areas that make up the Donbas.

On the ground, one person was killed and three others were wounded when a guided aerial bomb hit a house in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, while six people were wounded in a missile strike on the city of Uman, local officials said on Friday.

Russian drone attacks on the city of Mykolaiv and its suburbs overnight into Friday left part of the city without power. Energy and port infrastructure were damaged by drones in the city of Odesa on the Black Sea.

Meanwhile, Ukraine said that it struck a major Russian oil refinery on Thursday using UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles.

Ukraine’s General Staff said that its forces hit the Novoshakhtinsk refinery in Russia’s Rostov region.

“Multiple explosions were recorded. The target was hit,” it wrote on Telegram.

Rostov regional Gov. Yuri Slyusar said that a firefighter was wounded when extinguishing the fire.

Ukraine’s long-range drone strikes on Russian refineries aim to deprive Moscow of the oil export revenue it needs to pursue its full-scale invasion.

Russia wants to cripple the Ukraine’s power grid, seeking to deny civilians access to heat, light and running water in what Ukrainian officials say is an attempt to “weaponise winter.”