By Tom Balmforth
KYIV (Reuters) -Russian&nbsp;President&nbsp;Vladimir&nbsp;Putin&nbsp;is&nbsp;not&nbsp;sincere&nbsp;about&nbsp;peace&nbsp;talks&nbsp;with&nbsp;Ukraine&nbsp;while&nbsp;he&nbsp;is&nbsp;taking&nbsp;the&nbsp;war&nbsp;to a&nbsp;new&nbsp;level&nbsp;of "barbarism" by&nbsp;trying&nbsp;to&nbsp;turn&nbsp;off&nbsp;the&nbsp;lights&nbsp;of&nbsp;civilians, a&nbsp;top&nbsp;U.S.&nbsp;diplomat&nbsp;said&nbsp;on&nbsp;Saturday.
U.S. Under Secretary for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland met&nbsp;President&nbsp;Volodymyr Zelenskiy and other senior Ukrainian&nbsp;officials in Kyiv to show support at a time when Russia is&nbsp;trying&nbsp;to destroy the&nbsp;country's energy infrastructure.
"Diplomacy is obviously everyone's objective but you have to have a willing partner," she&nbsp;told reporters. "And it's very clear, whether it's the&nbsp;energy attacks, whether it's the&nbsp;rhetoric out of the&nbsp;Kremlin and the&nbsp;general attitude, that&nbsp;Putin&nbsp;is&nbsp;not&nbsp;sincere&nbsp;or ready for that."
U.S.&nbsp;President&nbsp;Joe Biden&nbsp;said&nbsp;on Thursday&nbsp;he&nbsp;was prepared to speak to&nbsp;Putin&nbsp;if the&nbsp;Russian&nbsp;leader was interested in ending the&nbsp;war. But the&nbsp;idea died quickly when the&nbsp;Kremlin&nbsp;said&nbsp;the&nbsp;West must recognize Moscow's declared annexation of four Ukrainian regions.
This reaction from Russia, Nuland&nbsp;said, showed "how&nbsp;not&nbsp;serious they are".
Russia has been carrying out huge attacks on&nbsp;Ukraine's electricity transmission and&nbsp;heating infrastructure roughly weekly since October, in what Kyiv and its allies say is a deliberate campaign to harm&nbsp;civilians, a&nbsp;war&nbsp;crime.
"Putin&nbsp;has taken this&nbsp;war&nbsp;to a&nbsp;new&nbsp;level&nbsp;of&nbsp;barbarism,&nbsp;taking&nbsp;it into every single Ukrainian home as&nbsp;he&nbsp;tries to&nbsp;turn&nbsp;off&nbsp;the&nbsp;lights&nbsp;and the&nbsp;water and achieve what&nbsp;he&nbsp;couldn't on the&nbsp;battlefield," Nuland&nbsp;said.
Russian&nbsp;Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova was quick to respond.
"It is&nbsp;not&nbsp;for Nuland to teach the&nbsp;world - only the&nbsp;United States and NATO combined destroyed more energy networks than the&nbsp;United States destroyed by itself," Zakharova&nbsp;said&nbsp;on the&nbsp;Telegram channel, pointing to the&nbsp;1999 attacks on Serbia.
During the&nbsp;attacks in Serbia,&nbsp;warplanes shut&nbsp;off&nbsp;power to more than 70% of the&nbsp;area, according to NATO.
Nuland also met Andriy Yermak, the&nbsp;head of Zelenskiy's&nbsp;office, who expressed thanks for the&nbsp;billions of dollars worth of aid Washington has committed to&nbsp;Ukraine.
"Ukraine's victory, which we are sure of, will be our joint victory," Zelenskiy's&nbsp;office quoted him as telling Nuland.
(Reporting by Thomas Balmforth, writing by David Ljunggren and Lidia Kelly; Editing by Sandra Maler)

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Putin insincere about peace talks, takes war to new level of 'barbarism' - a top U.S. diplomat