World

KYIV — Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday 100,000 people were without heating in the southern city of Mykolaiv in cold temperatures after a Russian drone strike on "critical infrastructure".

Ukrainian officials had earlier said that Russian drones had hit a local thermal power plant.

Zelensky said the attack was proof Russia did not want peace, in a statement that came after he warned Western leaders not to trust Moscow and as Europe braces for a summit between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.

"Today, more than a 100,000 people in Mykolaiv were left without heating as a result of a Russian Shahed attack on the city's critical infrastructure," Zelensky said on social media.

"This has nothing to do with the fighting and the situation at the frontline," he said, adding: "This is not what those who really want to restore peace and prepare for negotiations do."

Zelensky said repair teams are working to restore heating in Mykolaiv, which lies close to the Black Sea.

The Ukrainian leader called for a "strong" response from Western allies and said: "We need to force Russia to peace."

Ukraine's prime minister Denys Shmygal earlier said that Russian drones hit the power plant in Mykolaiv at night.

"This was done deliberately to leave people without heat in sub-zero temperatures and create a humanitarian catastrophe," he said.

Russia has targeted Ukraine's energy infrastructure throughout its three-year invasion.

MUNICH, Germany — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Saturday said that the war between Ukraine and Russia would only truly end with peace if Ukrainian sovereignty is secured.

US President Donald Trump stunned allies and upended the status quo of Washington's support for Ukraine this week when he announced he would likely soon meet Russian leader Vladimir Putin to start truce talks, sparking fears that Kyiv would be pressured into making painful concessions.

"There will only be peace if Ukraine's sovereignty is secured," Scholz told the Munich Security Conference.

"A dictated peace will therefore never find our support."

He added that "we will also not accept any solution that leads to a decoupling of European and American security. Only one person would benefit from this: President Putin."

"We Europeans will represent these interests confidently and unitedly in the upcoming negotiations."

Scholz spoke shortly before Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky was set to address the gathering of European leaders and policymakers in Germany.

Zelensky on Friday said he wanted "security guarantees" after he met with US Vice President JD Vance to discuss the Trump administration's efforts to broker a truce deal with Moscow.

Scholz said that to ensure Russia would not attack again if peace is reached, Kyiv's backers "first of all" needed to build up Ukraine's armed forces in the future.

"There will be a responsibility in the post war times for Europe and for the United States and for the international partners and friends of Ukraine to make this happen," he said.

"All the sort of security guarantees we give should be designed from this basis."

ADDIS ABABA — UN chief Antonio Guterres on Saturday demanded that the Democratic Republic of Congo's "territorial integrity" be respected and a regional war avoided, at an African summit the day after Rwandan-backed fighters seized a second DRC provincial capital.

With international pressure mounting on Rwanda to curb the fighting in eastern DR Congo [DRC], the conflict was set to dominate the African Union summit as it opened in Addis Ababa.

Rwanda's President Paul Kagame was seen attending meetings at the gathering, but DR Congo's president Felix Tshisekedi was absent from the summit as the M23 advanced through his country's territory.

Having routed the Congolese army to capture the key provincial capital of Goma in North Kivu last month, the Rwandan-backed armed group pushed into neighbouring South Kivu.

It took a vital airport there before marching virtually unchecked into another key city, Bukavu, on Friday, security and humanitarian sources said.

"The fighting that is raging in South Kivu, as a result of the continuation of the M23 offensive, threatens to push the entire region over the precipice," Guterres told leaders in an address to the summit, without mentioning Rwanda.

"Regional escalation must be avoided at all costs. There is no military solution," he added.

"The dialogue must begin. And the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the DRC must be respected."

DRC ceasefire call

With the spectre of a regional conflagration rising in eastern DRC, the AU has been criticised for its timid approach and observers have demanded more decisive action.

The European Union on Saturday said that it was "urgently" considering all options following the news from Bukavu.

"The ongoing violation of the DRC's territorial integrity will not go unanswered," it warned.

East and southern African leaders on February 8 called for an "immediate and unconditional" ceasefire within five days, but fresh fighting erupted on Tuesday.

Outgoing AU commission chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat told AFP on Friday that there was a "general mobilisation" among African nations to stop the clashes.

Summit host Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia's prime minister, insisted on Saturday that "conflict resolution, diplomacy and peace building must remain at the heart of our efforts."

A meeting of the AU's Peace and Security Council dedicated to the conflict ran late into the evening on Friday, with neither Kagame nor Tshisekedi attending.

A government source told AFP that Tshisekedi would not attend the summit over the weekend either as he had to "closely follow the situation on the ground in DRC".

AFP journalists in Bukavu reported sporadic gunfire there on Saturday, with the streets deserted as residents sheltered inside after reports of overnight looting.

Across the nearby border in Rwanda, AFP reporters in the town of Rusizi said on Saturday that the situation was calm but some gunshots could be heard.

Tshisekedi, speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Friday, urged nations to "blacklist" Rwanda, condemning Kigali's "expansionist ambitions".

Rwanda has not admitted backing M23 but has accused extremist Hutu groups in DR Congo of threatening its security.

DR Congo accuses Rwanda of plundering valuable minerals in its eastern provinces.

Neighbouring Burundi has also sent thousands of troops to support DR Congo's struggling army.

KRAGUJEVAC, SERBIA — Thousands of Serbians blocked the main boulevard of the central city Kragujevac on Saturday, the latest in a series of months-long mass protests to rock the Balkan country after the deadly collapse of a train station roof.

Thousands of students and citizens from across the country gathered in the city's centre on the start of Serbia's national holiday to call for greater government accountability and reforms.

Protestors waved flags marked with bloody handprint, the protests' logo, as they organized performances and shouted "pump", a message indicating that they are not thinking of giving up.

The university student-led movement has put increasing pressure on Serbia's government, spurring the resignation of several high-ranking officials, including Prime Minister Milos Vucevic at the end of January.

Last November's collapse of the station roof in Novi Sad, which killed 15 people, followed extensive renovations to the building in the northern city and fueled long-standing anger over corruption and demands for accountability.

The Kragujevac blockade is the third day-long city demonstration, after Belgrade and Novi Sad a few weeks ago.

At 10:52 AM GMT, the time of the tragedy, protesters observed 15 minutes of silence to honor the victims.

The blockade is planned to last past midnight, also marking Statehood Day and the anniversary of the first Serbian Constitution in 1835, one of the most progressive in Europe at the time, with students calling on institutions to uphold constitutional principles today.

MOSCOW — The Kremlin said Thursday that Kyiv will be involved in peace talks to end the three-year conflict "one way or another," a day after US President Trump held separate calls with the leaders of Russia and Ukraine.

Moscow also said there was no agreement on the timing or location for a face-to-face meeting between Trump and President Vladimir Putin, suggesting it could be "several months" away.

"One way or another, of course, Ukraine will participate in the negotiations," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview on Russian state TV.

He said there would be a "bilateral Russian-American track" and another track that would be "connected to Ukraine's involvement."

He did not say whether this would involve direct talks between Russian and Ukrainian officials.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said earlier Thursday that Trump had wanted to speak to both him and Putin on a single phone call.

Trump instead held separate calls with both of them that each lasted more than an hour.

Peskov also said that there was no agreement with Trump as to the details of a meeting between him and Putin, that both sides have said they are working on.

Trump said Wednesday the pair could meet in Saudi Arabia.

"So far no decisions have been made, neither at the working level, nor at the highest level," Peskov said.

"Of course, it will take time to prepare such a meeting. It could be weeks, it could be a month, it could be several months."

KYIV — US President Donald Trump spoke with Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky this week suggesting the separate calls, each lasting more than an hour,  were kick starting peace talks.

AFP looks at where Moscow and Kyiv stand on negotiations that could end the nearly three-year war that has cost tens of thousands of lives.

Russia: the conflict's 'root causes'

During his call with Trump, Putin said that to end the war in Ukraine, the "root causes" of the conflict needed to be resolved.

This was an apparent reference to security demands that Moscow put to NATO and Washington in late 2021, weeks before launching the war.

Those demands envisaged sweeping changes to Europe's security architecture, including the withdrawal of US and NATO forces from former Soviet countries and eastern bloc members, including the Baltic states, Romania and Bulgaria, which are all NATO and EU members.

Russia also demanded a commitment from NATO that it would not offer membership to any other ex-Soviet nations, including Ukraine, or conduct military operations on former USSR territory.

The Kremlin, since invading, has ruled out the idea of swapping territory in Russia controlled by Ukraine for Ukrainian territory controlled by its army.

Moscow says that any agreement to end the conflict must reflect the "new realities on the ground," referring to its annexation of four southern and eastern Ukrainian territories in 2022, as well as its 2014 seizure of Crimea.

It has also ruled out direct talks with Zelensky, claiming that his presidential term ended last year. Under martial law imposed after the invasion, Zelensky remains leader and is internationally recognised as such.

Putin has praised US President Donald Trump, voiced readiness to meet with him and even suggested the war would not have started were Trump in the White House in 2022.

Ukraine: 'a just peace'

President Volodymyr Zelensky wants the war to end as soon as possible and for Ukraine to get security guarantees that would deter future Russian attacks, like NATO membership or a large-scale foreign peacekeeping contingent.

He has said that talks should include Ukraine, Russia, the United States, and the European Union, since Kyiv, currently a candidate, hopes to join the bloc.

Kyiv is refusing to cede territory to Russia but Zelensky has conceded that Ukraine may only be able to reclaim some territories later through diplomacy.

He has sought to rally allies around the Ukrainian vision for ending the war through two documents, the Peace Formula and the Victory Plan. He has said that talks excluding Kyiv will fail.

Ukraine captured swathes of Russia's border region of Kursk last August and says the territory will be an important bargaining chip in any talks. Earlier this week he explicitly floated the idea of relinquishing it in exchange for some Russian-held territory in Ukraine.

He had previously said that a complete withdrawal of Russian troops would be a precondition for talks and that only a "just peace" can permanently end the war.

Background

Kyiv does not trust that Russia will keep up its end of any deal without oversight, pointing to several previous pacts.

In July 2022, Moscow and Kyiv signed agreements with Turkey and the United Nations allowing Ukraine to bypass a Russian naval blockade in the Black Sea to export grain.

The Kremlin unilaterally ended the deal one year later, complaining that its calls for sanctions relief were ignored.

This week's talks in Munich come a decade after France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia attempted to broker a peace agreement in the capital of Belarus to end fighting between Kremlin-backed separatist forces and Kyiv.

Those fragile accords gave Russian-supported separatists de facto control over swathes of eastern Ukraine, which Kyiv says gave Russia time to build up its military to launch the full-scale invasion of 2022.

TAICHUNG, TAIWAN — A suspected gas explosion in a Taiwan department store killed at least four people and injured 29, authorities said on Thursday, with the force of the blast spraying large pieces of debris over the street below.

The blast happened in the food court on the 12th floor of the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi department store in the city of Taichung, the National Fire Agency said.

The floor was closed for construction work at the time of the incident, the agency said.

Video posted on social media and verified by AFP showed the moment of the explosion, with cladding and other debris flying off the building and dust billowing from inside.

Liao Yu-fu, 26, told AFP he was woken from a nap by the sound of the explosion and thought it was a "plane hitting a house".

"There was a vibration and even my bed was shaking," said Liao, who can see the department store from his home.

"The sound lasted for a long time and I was scared."

A woman who had been on the sixth floor of the store at the time said there was a "very loud vibration" and then debris began falling.

"At first, we thought it's an earthquake," the woman told local broadcaster TVBS.

"When I walked down the stairs, there was broken glass on every floor at the elevator entrance. Every floor is affected."

The blast killed four people and injured 29, the National Fire Agency said.

A person initially described as being "without vital signs" had been revived and was added to the injury toll.

A family of seven from Macau were among the casualties after they were hit by falling debris as they left the department store, a hospital official told reporters.

Two grandparents died and the five others were injured, including a two-year-old child who suffered a severe head wound, the official said.

 'Explosion is very serious'

Images released by the National Fire Agency showed extensive damage inside the department store, with twisted metal hanging from the ceiling and covering the floor.

Floors nine to 12 were affected, the fire agency said.

More than 200 people were evacuated from the store and six people were rescued from elevators.

Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen told reporters she had been working in the city government building next door when she felt a "vibration" at around 11:30 am.

"The explosion is very serious and the rescue is ongoing," Lu said.

The fire department sent 56 vehicles, 136 people, a dog and a drone to carry out search and rescue efforts, which have ended, the fire agency said.

Taichung Fire Bureau Chief Sun Fu-you told reporters the blast appeared to have been caused by gas but it was unclear if it was related to the construction work.

Shin Kong Mitsukoshi president Richard Wu said the company was "very shocked and very sad" about the incident.

"We will do our best to take all responsibilities for the parts we are responsible for," Wu told reporters at the scene.

The fire agency urged people to stay away from the disaster site.

Lu said the explosion had affected a wide area and at least one passerby was among the victims.

"There are many office buildings and homes in this area and we ask everyone to cooperate with the restrictions for your safety," Lu said.

The blast scattered large pieces of metal, cladding and debris over the footpath outside the department store and nearby streets.