Barely a day after Donald Trump posted that Moscow and Kyiv would stop hitting each other’s power systems, Kyiv says the promise is already being broken. In a video address to a security conference in Warsaw on Monday, Volodymyr Zelenskyy charged that Russian forces had already ignored the deal, and he asked the Americans to make it stick.
Ukrainian officials cite an attack on an electricity plant in Kharkiv launched after Trump’s Sunday evening post. The city’s mayor reported at least 12 people hurt in attacks on energy sites, and Naftogaz said an overnight strike set one of its gas production facilities in the region on fire, damaging key equipment.
Zelenskyy did not reject the concept. Sparing energy targets could, in his view, move the conflict significantly closer to its end, provided Washington keeps the Kremlin in line, and repeated that Ukraine would stop targeting Russian refineries in return. If Moscow refuses, he warned, Kyiv will respond. He also noted that he had learned of the deal from the media, joking that Vladimir Putin evidently “does not read Truth Social.”
Signals from Moscow pointed in different directions. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said discussions on an energy pause were continuing but insisted Russia wants lasting peace rather than a ceasefire. Moscow also turned down Zelenskyy’s idea of pausing the fighting for two months so Ukrainians could vote, saying Putin would entertain a pause of only one day if Ukraine held a presidential vote.
European capitals sounded unconvinced. French President Emmanuel Macron said he had seen no sign of Russian restraint in two days, while Kaja Kallas, the EU’s top diplomat, told ministers gathered in Luxembourg that Europe would be glad of the truce “if it holds.” The same day the EU placed nearly 1,600 more individuals and entities tied to Russia’s arms industry under sanctions, which Kallas called the biggest single expansion since the invasion began. Poland’s Donald Tusk said he would lobby partners in Brussels for even tougher steps.
