Russia targets Ukraine energy facilities despite Trump ‘energy ceasefire’
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday that Russia has continued to strike Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, violating what Trump claimed was an energy ceasefire agreed to between the two countries.
Zelensky said Russian forces struck a thermal power plant in Kharkiv and other energy facilities, despite Trump’s declaration on Sunday that both countries had agreed to immediately stop targeting each other’s energy infrastructures.
“It is clear that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin does not read Truth Social, and his ‘shahed’ drones follow a different set of instructions,” Zelensky wrote Monday on the social platform X.
Trump announced the ceasefire Sunday on Truth Social following a phone conversation with Putin, stating that both sides had agreed to the ceasefire and warning them not to violate it.
Zelensky was caught off guard by the announcement, and he said at the Warsaw Security Forum in Poland that Ukraine had learned of the deal through news reports.
He said Ukraine supported the proposal but made it clear that Kyiv would not agree to stop its retaliatory strikes without a corresponding halt to Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy system.
“If Russia wants us to stop our long-range strikes against its oil refineries and oil exports, then Russia must stop its strikes against our energy system and critical infrastructure. This is only fair,” Zelensky wrote.
Zelensky urged the Trump administration to secure Moscow’s compliance, saying the agreement could help pave the way toward ending the more than four-year-long war.
Tensions escalated between Trump and Zelensky over Ukraine’s strikes on Russian oil refineries, which the president has blamed for causing U.S. diesel prices to surge ahead of November’s midterm elections.
Trump warned Zelensky on Saturday that he had “better damn well stop” attacking Russian refineries, a day after reaching an agreement with Putin to purchase 300,000 tons of Russian diesel in an effort to lower fuel prices.
Zelensky blasted the diesel deal, arguing the move will provide the necessary funding to further fund Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“Gifts to Putin will not bring peace or any benefit to the civilized world,” Zelensky wrote in a lengthy post on X. “Russia will ‘repay’ the diesel with further terror and perfidy. Allowing Russia to sell petroleum products is an investment in a war that must be ended, not prolonged.”
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