Author: Blazingcatfur

KYIV — Ukraine and Russia were set to send delegations to Doha this month to negotiate a landmark agreement halting strikes on energy and power infrastructure on both sides, diplomats and officials familiar with the discussions said, in what would have amounted to a partial cease-fire and offered a reprieve for both countries.

But the indirect talks, with the Qataris serving as mediators and meeting separately with the Ukrainian and Russian delegations, were derailed by Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Russia’s western Kursk region last week, according to the officials. The possible agreement and planned summit have not been previously reported.

President Zelensky approved the plan, then tried unsuccessfully to call it off

International incidents rarely play out like Hollywood action films — and when they do, the public usually doesn’t get to hear about it. But every once in a while, some journalist goes out and digs up the kind of story that Steven King might conjure up.

On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal published a lengthy investigative piece on the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage mystery. For those Americans who may have forgotten, in September 2022, an unknown someone set off an explosive that ruptured the twin pipelines usually used to pump natural gas from Russia to Europe. The result was that, on the eve of winter, Europe was faced with a potential energy crisis, and they weren’t happy about it.