Donald Trump has claimed that Vladimir Putin agreed to halt strikes on Ukraine's energy infrastructure for one week after the US president made a personal appeal to the Russian leader because of the extreme cold in Ukraine. Trump announced the short-term ceasefire during a cabinet meeting at the White House on Thursday, saying: 'I personally asked President Putin not to fire into Kyiv and various towns for a week and he agreed to do that.'
The agreement has not been confirmed by Moscow or Kyiv. Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, did not immediately confirm the ceasefire but described Trump's statement as an 'important statement ... about the possibility of providing security for Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities during this extreme winter period'. Trump did not give a start or end date for the ceasefire, and the phone call during which the request was made had not been previously reported.
Both Russia and Ukraine appeared surprised by the public announcement. Zelenskyy later said that a ceasefire on power plants and other vital energy infrastructure had been discussed and that he expected the agreements to be implemented. The Kremlin declined to discuss whether an energy ceasefire had been negotiated. Social media channels close to the military had speculated about a short ceasefire before the announcement, but those reports were unconfirmed.
The announcement comes amid a brutal winter in Ukraine. According to Reuters, two recent Russian missile and drone strikes left more than one million people in Kyiv without power and more than 6,000 buildings without heating, with temperatures expected to drop to -20C in the coming weeks. Earlier, a Kremlin aide, Yuri Ushakov, rejected assertions that the only remaining issue in peace talks was control over territory in the Donbas, saying many other issues remained on the agenda.
Ukraine and Russia are expected to continue talks in Abu Dhabi this weekend focusing on military contacts and monitoring a potential ceasefire. On Thursday evening, Zelenskyy said he had intelligence indicating that Russia was preparing a new strike against Ukraine, and warned that this would discredit diplomatic discussions. Earlier this week, a Russian drone strike on a Ukrainian passenger train killed five people, with a carriage carrying 155 passengers struck; Zelenskyy called the attack an act of terrorism.
