US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that Moscow and Kyiv had agreed a Trump energy ceasefire on strikes against energy infrastructure, calling it "effective immediately". President Volodymyr Zelensky has said Ukraine would take part only if Russia did the same. The Kremlin has not confirmed any deal. The BBC reported that Trump gave no further details.
Kyiv signals support, Moscow stays quiet
Zelensky said the claim was news to him. He later wrote that his officials look forward to "clear details of America's dialogue with Russia", and that Ukraine is ready to stop striking Russian energy sites if Russia is equally ready and the US president agrees. That conditional offer is Kyiv's public answer to the Trump energy ceasefire.
Britain, France, Canada and the European Union backed the appeal. UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Britain "strongly supports" Trump's call for a sustained halt to start now.
President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, was asked whether such an understanding had been agreed. He replied that contacts were continuing and that Moscow would speak once it had something to say, the BBC reported. Pro-Kremlin coverage described the announcement as a gift.
Moskovsky Komsomolets argued that Russia would only have to leave standing what it called Ukraine's last oil refinery, already hit several times and barely working, while Ukraine would be blocked from striking Russia's many refineries. The paper said the moment should be used to "knock Ukraine back to the Stone Age" and force peace on Russian terms. The BBC described the Kremlin's aim as Ukraine's capitulation.
Strikes after the announcement
Zelensky said Russia hit several energy targets overnight into Monday, including a drone strike on a power plant in Kyiv that caused power cuts, then attacks in the Kharkiv region. He said those strikes came after Trump had spoken. On Monday, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Ukraine does not deserve the "respite" a ceasefire would bring. Peskov repeated that the Kremlin wants a lasting peace rather than a pause.
The ground war has not stopped in its fourth year. Regional officials said six people were killed on Sunday in attacks on two Ukrainian cities. Officials also reported one death in Russia's Belgorod region, on the border with Ukraine, and another in a drone attack in Russian-occupied Donetsk.
The diesel deal and the election argument
Trump has pressed Ukraine to halt strikes on Russian oil facilities so Moscow can release diesel to the United States and the world market under a recent deal that temporarily undoes sanctions on Russian energy imports. The BBC linked that push to midterm elections in November and to higher world fuel prices, especially diesel, after a war with Iran. It also noted widespread doubt that the volumes would do much to lower prices. Zelensky called the diesel deal a gift to Putin and has not offered an unconditional Ukraine energy truce.
Seven senators, three Democrats and four Republicans, said the deal "runs directly counter" to a law barring Russian oil imports until Moscow ends its aggression against Ukraine and stops threatening NATO allies. Republican Senator Thom Tillis told NBC News that the deal "absolutely will" put American lives at risk. UK Defence Secretary Wes Streeting told the BBC that Britain did not support the diesel deal, and EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas criticised it on Saturday. That same day Trump accused Zelensky of wanting to "make problems for the world" by continuing refinery attacks, and said: "I think it's time for Ukraine to get a new president."
Zelensky has said he would hold elections, which Ukraine's constitution suspends during wartime, if Russia agreed to a 60-day ceasefire covering the whole war. On Monday the Kremlin proposed only a one-day pause for a vote. The BBC said that would not be seen in Ukraine or the West as a serious offer. The Trump energy ceasefire is therefore still unconfirmed: Kyiv has set a condition, Moscow has not accepted it in public, and energy sites were still being hit after Trump spoke.
