Blinken: Russian attacks on Ukraine's energy grid will not succeed

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said yesterday that Russian President Vladimir Putin has focused his fire and anger on the civilian population in Ukraine, bombing more than a third of Ukraine's energy grid in a strategy that will not work.

"These are new goals for President Putin, his strategy has not and will not succeed," Blinken said after a meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Bucharest.

Blinken described the Russian strikes on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine as "barbaric."

"Over the past few weeks, Russia has bombed more than a third of Ukraine's energy system, plunging millions into cold and darkness," he said.

In addition, the Russian Information Agency said yesterday that the head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergei Naryshkin, and the director of the CIA, William Burns, discussed nuclear issues and the situation in Ukraine at a meeting earlier this month.

The agency added that the two officials met in Turkey in the middle of last month, in the highest direct meeting between the two sides since the Russian war on Ukraine.

The Chargé d'Affairs at the US Embassy in Moscow, Elizabeth Rudd, told the RIA news agency that Burns "did not negotiate anything and did not discuss the settlement of the conflict in Ukraine."

"For my part, I confirm Ms. Rudd's statement," Naryshkin told RIA.

In addition, I can note that the most frequently used words at this meeting were strategic stability, nuclear security, Ukraine, and the Kyiv system.” Naryshkin also confirmed Rudd's comments that the two countries have a channel of communication to manage risk and that if further talks of this nature were needed, that could happen. .

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