Energy Ceasefire
Zelenskyy says Ukraine will stop hitting Russian energy sites only if Russia does the same, disputing Trump's ceasefire claim.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Monday that Ukraine will match any Russian halt on energy strikes. The Ukrainian president disputed President Trump's claim that a ceasefire was already in force, according to the Associated Press and NPR.
Trump posted Sunday, declaring "an ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine." "Do not break it!" he added, according to the AP and NPR. Zelenskyy called the announcement good news, saying Ukraine "welcomed" it, NPR reported. Hours later, Russia struck a power plant in Kharkiv. It also hit Naftogaz gas production equipment in the same region, starting a fire, CNBC reported. No one was hurt. But "critical equipment was damaged," Naftogaz's acting chief executive, Sergii Fedorenko, said in a statement cited by CNBC.
Two days earlier, Trump argued it was time for Ukraine to hold a new presidential election. He blamed Zelenskyy for failing to end the war, and for high U.S. diesel prices, NPR reported. Zelenskyy's answer was conditional. Not without a 60-day ceasefire from Russia. "It's up to our society, up to our people to choose one or another leader," he told NPR. Ukraine's constitution, he added, bars elections under the martial law imposed since Russia's 2022 invasion.
Russia fired roughly 200 drones overnight into Tuesday at Ukrainian energy and port facilities. One person was killed and seven injured in Kyiv, NBC News reported. Ukraine's military struck back, hitting the Syzran oil refinery in Russia's Samara region, a drone production facility in Taganrog, and a drone launch site in the Oryol region, according to NBC News. Brig. Gen. Andrii Biletskyi, a senior Ukrainian commander, announced a new offensive near Sloviansk and Kramatorsk in Donetsk, saying his forces had cleared roughly 29 square miles of Russian infiltration groups, according to NBC News.
Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, called the ceasefire proposal "a very good idea, a good initiative." Moscow, he told NBC News, remained "in contact with the Americans."
EU foreign ministers gathered in Luxembourg on Monday to weigh nearly 1,600 new sanctions targeting Russia's military industry, CNBC reported. Kaja Kallas, the EU's foreign policy chief, warned that suspending sanctions on Russian diesel "provides Moscow with more revenues to wage war."