Russia has agreed to a request from US President Donald Trump to halt air strikes on Kyiv until February 1 amid harsh winter temperatures, and Ukraine said it was ready to reciprocate as Washington pushes for a diplomatic solution to end the war.
But as the Ukrainian capital braces for another bitterly cold spell from tomorrow, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said yesterday there was no formal truce between the two countries.
He added that Russia had shifted to hitting Ukrainian logistics, after having bombed Ukraine’s roads and railways in recent days.
The Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin had accepted Trump’s request to stop bombarding Kyiv to create “favourable conditions” for peace talks.
In recent weeks, Russian strikes on energy infrastructure in Kyiv have left hundreds of thousands of people without heating for days on end at times as temperatures have dipped below minus 15C.
“President Trump did indeed make a personal request to President Putin to refrain from striking Kyiv for a week until February 1 in order to create favourable conditions for negotiations,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, confirming that Putin had agreed.
Zelenskiy said Ukraine was ready to reciprocate, halting its attacks on Russian refinery infrastructure, saying this was “an opportunity rather than an agreement.”
In a post on the Telegram app, Zelenskiy said there were no strikes on Ukrainian energy facilities overnight.
In a separate briefing with reporters, Zelenskiy said Ukrainian air defences had been left depleted because Kyiv’s European allies had delayed payments to the US under the PURL weapons purchase programme.
As a result, he said, US Patriot air defence missiles had not arrived ahead of heavy Russian airstrikes on Kyiv that knocked out power to swathes of the city this month.
Kyiv residents doubted the short energy truce would lead to any lasting improvement, saying they had no choice but to endure a winter that has become the darkest and coldest of the nearly four-year war.
l Trump said yesterday he believes a deal is close to end Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said he thinks “we are getting close” to an agreement. He did not provide details.
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