Kyiv — Ukraine’s top negotiator Rustem Umerov confirmed Wednesday that a new round of trilateral peace talks involving Ukraine, Russia and the U.S. had begun in Abu Dhabi. The parties first met in the Emirati capital at the end of January, kicking off the first three-way negotiations since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine almost four years ago.

U.S. officials labeled the first round “the most constructive of the war,” and they do appear to have led to the recent “energy truce,” with both sides halting attacks on each other’s energy infrastructure for four days. 

But whatever momentum might have been generated by the first round of talks in January appeared to have dissipated by the start of the second gathering.

Russia broke the brief truce in thundering fashion between Monday night and Tuesday morning, launching 450 drones and more than 60 missiles at Ukraine, according to Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, who said the strikes had left 1,170 apartment buildings in Kyiv without heating.

Representatives from DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, told CBS News the strikes were “one of the worst attacks” on the country’s energy infrastructure of the entire war.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the strikes evidence that Russia’s leaders, “do not take diplomacy seriously.”

“These attacks did not come as a surprise to anyone. This is what Russia does,” Yuriy Sak, an advisor to Ukraine’s Ministry of Strategic Industries, told CBS News. “On the one side, they continue to say they are interested in peace. On the other side, they destroy our infrastructure, bomb our people, and people are left without heat during these freezing months.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said ahead of the negotiations in Abu Dhabi that Russian forces were “striking targets they believe are associated with the Kyiv regime’s military complex, and the operation continues.”

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who visited Kyiv shortly after the attacks this week, said in a social media post that he had visited “a civilian heating plant” hit by Russian missiles on Tuesday. “No military value whatsoever — attacks meant only to make people suffer.”

What to expect from the trilateral talks today

Two major sticking points have long hampered President Trump’s efforts to get Russia and Ukraine to agree on a peace deal: Russian demands for Ukraine to formally cede territory Russia has occupied in the eastern Donbas region, and Ukrainian demands for credible guarantees from Western powers for protection if Russia tries to attack again after a ceasefire is reached.

Zelenksyy made it clear late last year that the question of territorial concessions remained the biggest hurdle in the talks. It is unlikely to be resolved during this round of negotiations, according to Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesperson Georgiy Tykhyi, who told reporters as the talks began that, “the most sensitive and complex issues, such as territorial issues,” will be left for the countries’ heads of state to discuss. 

But progress could be made on other issues, including how security guarantees for Ukraine would work once a hypothetical ceasefire does take effect. 

Ukraine and Russia have again sent delegations led by key military figures. Ukraine’s team includes Kyrylo Budanov, the former head of military intelligence who now serves as Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, while the Russian delegation is led by Igor Kostyukov, the head of the GRU military intelligence service.

These are the same negotiators who met in Abu Dhabi at the end of January, which Sak, the Ukrainian advisor, said could help keep things moving, at least on the technical aspects of a peace deal. 

“When military guys meet military guys, they can make progress, they speak the same language,” he said. “The concrete measures and steps within security guarantees — the military guys on both sides are well placed to discuss.”

“I personally remain slightly skeptical of some solid outcome, but at the same time, I am surrounded by people here in Ukraine who believe that some real outcome might be possible soon,” Sak said. “When the moment comes and the leaders meet, the nuances and details will be worked out and hopefully we can reach a compromise that is just for Ukraine and just for the world.”

LONDON — The British government has agreed to release emails and other documents casting light on the decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the United States despite his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.

The move came after the opposition Conservative Party said it would force a vote in Parliament on Wednesday calling for the release of emails and other messages related to Mandelson’s appointment in 2024. Critics say he should never have been given the job because his relationship with Epstein – though not its extent – was known at the time.

The government has agreed to release the requested information unless it is ”prejudicial to U.K. national security or international relations.” It’s unclear how much material will be released, or when.

Mandelson, 72, was fired in September from his job as envoy in Washington after emails were published showing he maintained a friendship with Epstein after the late financier’s conviction for sex offenses involving a minor.

This week he resigned from the House of Lords and faces a police investigation for alleged misconduct in public office, after a trove of documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice suggested Mandelson may have shared sensitive information with Epstein when he was government minister a decade and a half ago.

In 2009 he appears to have told Epstein he would lobby other members of the government to reduce a tax on bankers’ bonuses, and passed on an internal government report discussing a potential sale of U.K. government assets. The following year he appears to have tipped off Epstein about an imminent bailout of the European single currency.

The newly released files also suggest that in 2003-2004, Epstein sent three payments totaling $75,000 to accounts linked to Mandelson or his partner Reinaldo Avila da Silva.

Misconduct in public office carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. Opening an investigation does not mean Mandelson will be arrested, charged or convicted.

An email requesting comment on the documents was sent to Mandelson through the House of Lords.

Epstein died by suicide in a jail cell in 2019, while awaiting trial on U.S. federal charges accusing him of sexually abusing dozens of girls.

Berlin — Poland’s leader said Wednesday that the country would look into possible links between convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and Russian intelligence services, amid growing concern that the Epstein scandal may have implications beyond criminal justice that touch on national security for the European nation.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced in a video posted Wednesday on social media that the Polish government would create an analytical team to examine whether Polish children were abused via criminal networks connected to Epstein.

“We cannot allow any of the cases involving the abuse of the Polish children by a network of pedophiles and the organizer of this satanic circle, Mr. Epstein, to be treated lightly or ignored,” he said, adding with out any further detail that, “the first pieces of information have appeared relating to the individuals who informed Mr. Epstein from Krakow that they already had a group of Polish women or girls.”

“We have decided to establish an analytical team and possibly also to launch an investigation if our concerns over the scandal involving pedophilia in the U.S. are confirmed,” Tusk said.

He added that questions about “links between Epstein and the entire pedophile circle and the Russian special services … must, above all, be clarified by us in the light of security of the Polish state.”

Tusk did not elaborate on any suspected links between Epstein, an American financier who was accused of trafficking girls for sex before he died by suicide in a New York jail cell, and Russian agencies.

The Polish leader made his remarks after the U.S. Department of Justice released around 3 million more pages of documents related to the Epstein case on Friday, revealing new information about his global network of contacts.

Speaking ahead of a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Tusk described the scandal as a “completely unprecedented case,” adding that some of the newly released material pointed to what he called “Polish threads” in the scandal. 

“That is why prosecutors and special services will carry out a very detailed and quick analysis, file by file,” Tusk said.

Beyond any potential crimes against Polish citizens, Tusk noted that media reports and analysts have suggested Epstein’s activities may have been exploited by Russian security services to gather compromising material on influential figures. Such material could still be used today, he warned, creating risks for democratic institutions and national security.

The investigative team will be led by Poland’s justice minister and prosecutor general and will include prosecutors, police and members of the national security services. 

Spokespeople for the government said the group would be relatively small, operate under classified procedures, and begin working immediately. Poland may also seek further, unpublished evidence from U.S. authorities related to any Polish individuals based on the analysis, and may also advocate for an international investigation with other countries.

Russia has been dismissive of any allegations of links to the Epstein scandal. In December, Maria Zakharova, spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said the Epstein files exposed the hypocrisy of Western elites who had long criticized Moscow.

WARSAW, Poland — Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Polish authorities would analyze the recently published Jeffrey Epstein documents to seek any potential Polish victims.

“We cannot allow that any of the cases involving abuse of Polish children by the network of pedophiles and the organizer of this satanic circle, Mr. Epstein, be treated lightly,” Tusk said, referring to the financier who killed himself in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges that he sexually abused underage girls at his homes in the U.S.

His confidante, Ghislaine Maxwell, was convicted of recruiting girls for Epstein to abuse.

U.S. authorities never charged Epstein with running a network of pedophiles and have said they were unable to find sufficient evidence to justify bringing a criminal case against anyone else in connection with the case.

Speaking after a government meeting on Tuesday, Tusk said the possibility that there were Polish victims meant that Polish authorities were responsible to look into the over 3 million pages of documents, videos and photos released last week by the U.S. Department of Justice.

While references to Poland appear in the newly released Epstein files, no links to prominent politicians or explicit cases of abuse concerning Poles have come to light so far.

In his intervention, Tusk mentioned information about individuals in Krakow, a city in southern Poland, who told Epstein they had a group of “women or girls” for him. “There are more such leads,” Tusk claimed.

Tusk said a team would be set up to analyze the published documents, under the leadership of the minister of justice and the minister in charge of secret services. If necessary, a formal investigation would be initiated and Poland would request further documents from the U.S., he said.

The prime minister also said he also wanted an investigation into whether Epstein had any link to Russian secret services, although he did not present specific evidence why he worried that might be the case.

“So far there are over 1,000 documents among those published which directly concern Vladimir Putin,” Tusk said, without giving details about the content of those documents.

Putin’s name does appear in the records released by the Justice Department about 1,000 times, but the bulk of those references are news articles, or summaries of news stories, that have been shared by others and have nothing to do with the Epstein investigation.

Mentions of Putin also appear occasionally in Epstein’s personal email correspondence, most commonly in the form of discussions about how his policies might impact world finance.

On Tuesday, Latvia and Lithuania both announced opening investigations into the Epstein files.

The Russian Embassy in Warsaw and the Russian foreign ministry did not immediately respond to requests to comment.

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David B. Caruso in New York contributed to this report.