Winston Peters meets US Secretary of State in Washington DC and negotiations over the Russia-Ukraine ceasefire continue. Video / NZ Herald, AFP
Vladimir Putin agreed to pause strikes on Ukrainian energy targets for 30 days but refused a full ceasefire.
Donald Trump and Putin discussed repairing US-Russia relations, but no breakthrough was achieved.
Kyiv backed the energy truce, but President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Putin still seeks to weaken Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin has agreed to halt attacks against Ukrainian energy targets but would not accept an immediate full ceasefire.
In a call with US President Donald Trump this morning (NZ time) he also insisted that the West halt all military aid for Kyiv.
The US and Russian leaders spoke for more than an hour and a half and expressed hopes for repairing relations wrecked by Moscow’s full-scale invasion of its pro-Western neighbour three years ago.
But the highly anticipated call failed to produce the breakthrough Trump had hoped for, as there was no agreement from the Russian President for Washington’s proposed 30-day ceasefire, already agreed to by Ukraine.
US President Donald Trump had a lengthy phone call this morning. Photos / Mandel Ngan, Maxim Shemetov
In Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelensky said he backed the energy truce but believed Putin’s refusal of a wider peace showed he was not “ready” and still seeks to “weaken” Ukraine.
Trump insisted on his Truth Social network they had “an understanding that we will be working quickly to have a complete ceasefire and, ultimately, an END to this very horrible war”.
No guarantees
The Kremlin, however, made it clear that any full truce was a way off – and dependent on Russian demands that both Ukraine and its Western allies would find hard to accept.
A Kremlin statement said Putin agreed to pause strikes against Ukraine energy targets for 30 days and that Putin had already given the order to his military. The White House said separately that the “leaders agreed that the movement to peace will begin with an energy and infrastructure ceasefire”.
Russia has launched a series of devastating attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure throughout the winter. Ukraine has used drones to bomb multiple Russian oil installations.
Kyiv has agreed to halt fighting for 30 days and enter talks with Russia more than three years into Moscow’s invasion, but Putin has set a string of conditions including that Ukraine be barred from joining Nato.
Trump said on his Truth Social network on Monday that “many elements of a final agreement have been agreed to, but much remains” to be settled.
Putin speech
Putin gave a hardline anti-Western speech before the call, saying the West would still try to undermine Russia even if it lifted sanctions imposed over its invasion of Ukraine.
He mocked the G7 group of rich democracies – from which Russia was expelled in 2018 – to wild applause from the audience, saying it was too small to “see on a map”.
Kyiv said it expected Moscow to “unconditionally” accept the ceasefire.
“It is time for Russia to show whether it really wants peace,” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga said.
Sirens in Kyiv
Trump and Putin also agreed that broader truce talks would “begin immediately”, the White House said in its statement, citing a “huge upside” if Russia and the US repair their relations.
But the Kremlin statement said the “key condition” for peace would be a “complete cessation” of Western military and intelligence support to Ukraine’s embattled military.
Explosions rang out and air raid sirens wailed over the Ukrainian capital Kyiv a few hours after the call, AFP journalists reported, in a sign that Russia appeared determined to press on with its wider offensive.
Trump has been intent on delivering on an election pledge to end fighting in Ukraine, blaming his predecessor Joe Biden’s policy on Russia for fueling the war.
He stunned the world in February when he announced a surprise call with Putin and the start of talks with Russia to end the conflict, sparking fears among allies that he was pivoting too far towards Moscow.
As Trump upended years of US policy staunchly backing Ukraine, he then had a televised shouting match with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office.
But Western allies have been skeptical that Putin is ready for a ceasefire.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron vowed after the Kremlin statement that they would keep sending military aid to Ukraine.
The Europeans have also been wary that Trump will try to force through a deal that punishes Ukraine without demanding concessions of Russia.
Trump said at the weekend that he was ready to discuss “dividing up certain assets” of Ukraine’s, including land and power plants.
Under US pressure, Ukraine had already agreed to Washington’s proposal for a full 30-day ceasefire. It has also accepted a US plan to give it preferential access to Ukraine’s mineral resources.
But Putin has repeatedly said that there were further issues that needed discussion, mostly centering on its maximalist demands for the West to halt all support for Ukraine.
Russia has pressed on with a grinding advance in recent months in southern and eastern Ukraine.
Moscow has also seized back much of Russia’s Kursk region, parts of which Kyiv seized last year and was hoping to use as a bargaining chip.
Russia said on Tuesday that Ukrainian forces attempted a ground assault on the Belgorod region earlier but were pushed back, casting it as an attempt to undermine the Trump talks.
