Zelenskiy says Trump's energy ceasefire claim caught him by surprise
Ukraine will accept an energy ceasefire only if Russia does too, Zelenskiy says, after Trump announced a deal neither side has confirmed on its own terms.
Published
Volodymyr Zelenskiy says he first learned of an energy ceasefire from Donald Trump's announcement, not from any agreement his own side had reached. Trump said Sunday that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to halt strikes on energy infrastructure, after a week in which both countries hit each other's refineries and pumping stations. Zelenskiy says Ukraine will accept such a ceasefire only if Russia agrees to one too.
Moscow has not publicly confirmed Trump's announcement.
The claim comes days after Ukraine's negotiating team cut short a trip to Washington that had been due to run through Saturday, where it had been pressing for more air defence. The delegation had been due to meet US officials Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner on Friday, with European negotiators expected to join the talks in the coming days.
The strikes Trump's ceasefire would halt have continued through the week. On Saturday, Ukraine struck Russia's Samara oil pumping station, part of a string of hits on Russian oil infrastructure. On Friday, Zelenskiy said Ukraine had struck the Omsk and Ukhta refineries in Russia, with Omsk hit for the second time in two days.
Zelenskiy's surprise at Trump's announcement, combined with his conditional rather than outright acceptance, echoes a pattern from September, when claims of an energy ceasefire preceded further strikes rather than a pause in them. It also revives a dispute from late September, when Zelenskiy rejected the idea that Ukraine would stop strikes unilaterally without Russia doing the same. With Russia offering no public confirmation now, the gap between Trump's announcement and what each side has actually agreed to remains the central fact for anyone watching whether the fighting over energy infrastructure actually stops.