Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he would speak with the US president, Donald Trump, on Wednesday, their first conversation since last month’s disastrous Oval Office meeting, as the Ukrainian president warned Vladimir Putin’s pledge to halt strikes on energy infrastructure was “very much at odds with reality” after a barrage of drone attacks across the country.
Russia carried out overnight strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure despite Putin agreeing in a call with Trump on Tuesday to avoid such targets for 30 days.
“Even last night, after Putin’s conversation with Trump, when Putin said that he was allegedly giving orders to stop strikes on Ukrainian energy, there were 150 drones launched overnight, including on energy facilities,” Ukraine’s president said at a news conference in Helsinki with his Finnish counterpart, Alexander Stubb.
Zelenskyy announced he would have a call with Trump later in the day to “discuss the details” ahead of the next round of talks between US and Russian delegations on Sunday in Saudi Arabia.
It would be the first known conversation between Trump and Zelenskyy since their disastrous meeting at the White House last month.
Kyiv is expected to agree to the new, more limited ceasefire, but Zelenskyy said he was waiting for further information from Washington.
“If the Russians would stop hitting our targets we would certainly not be striking their targets,” Zelenskyy said in Helsinki on Wednesday.
Russia and the US are meeting in Riyadh this weekend to finalise the limited ceasefire deal and begin discussions on a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea, as well as the prospects for a full ceasefire.
Trump and Putin spoke for more than two hours on Tuesday evening, and while the Russian president rejected Trump’s request for a full 30-day ceasefire, to which Ukraine had agreed last week in Jeddah, the pair agreed on a mutual moratorium between Russia and Ukraine on strikes on energy and infrastructure targets.
However, shortly after the call ended, air raid sirens sounded in Kyiv. About 45 drones attacked the region around the capital, and anti-aircraft fire was audible across Kyiv overnight.
Authorities said numerous houses and cars were damaged by drones that fell in Bucha and other areas around the capital, and two people were injured. In the eastern city of Sumy, a drone hit a hospital building, and more than 100 patients had to be evacuated. In a separate incident, one civilian died in a nearby village.
Ukraine also continued its own long-range drone assaults on Russia overnight, apparently hitting an oil depot in the southern region of Krasnodar. Russia’s defence ministry claimed it destroyed 57 Ukrainian drones, the majority in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces have recently been withdrawing from a small chunk of territory they have occupied for the past seven months.
Speaking to reporters in Moscow on Wednesday, Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, reiterated that Putin and Trump had agreed to a 30-day ceasefire specifically targeting energy infrastructure.
Russia’s defence ministry claimed in a statement that, as part of Putin’s limited ceasefire pledge, its air defence systems shot down its own kamikaze drones, which had reportedly been targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
Peskov also underscored the growing warmth between the two leaders, who have been lavishing praise on each other in recent weeks, fuelling anxieties in Europe and Ukraine.
“Presidents Putin and Trump understand each other well, trust each other and are intent to gradually move towards the normalisation of ties,” he said.
Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, told Fox News that talks to finalise the deal between the two sides would begin on Sunday. “We have some details to work out of course, but that will begin on Sunday in Jeddah, and beyond that we’ll move to a full ceasefire,” he said.
He described the call as “two great leaders coming together for the betterment of mankind”.
Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform shortly after the call ended that he had had a “very good and productive” conversation with Putin.
He added: “We agreed to an immediate Ceasefire on all Energy and Infrastructure, with an understanding that we will be working quickly to have a Complete Ceasefire and, ultimately, an END to this very horrible War between Russia and Ukraine.”
Trump later told the Washington Examiner news outlet that the call with Putin was “very good,” describing the Russian leader as “very solid, very strong – which he is”.
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Trump has been keen to do a quick deal to end the war, which many in other western capitals are concerned may involve pressuring Ukraine into an unfavourable deal, as Russia shows no sign of relaxing its maximalist demands for peace.
A Kremlin statement said Putin had issued an order to the Russian military to suspend strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure. However, it added that in order to agree to a full ceasefire Moscow would first require all western military aid to Ukraine to cease.
“It was emphasised that a key condition for preventing the escalation of the conflict and working toward its resolution through political and diplomatic means must be the complete cessation of foreign military aid and the provision of intelligence to Kyiv,” the Kremlin said.
Speaking on Fox News after the call, Trump denied that the issue had even come up. “No, we didn’t talk about aid, actually, we didn’t talk about aid at all. We talked about a lot of things but aid was never discussed,” he said.
However, Peskov directly contradicted Trump on Wednesday, telling reporters in Moscow that “the need to halt arms supplies to Kyiv was discussed during Putin and Trump’s conversation”.
“The suspension of military aid to Kyiv will be high on the agenda in negotiations between Russia and the US, but the topic will not be discussed publicly,” Peskov said.
Ukraine had initially proposed a ceasefire on sea and in the air, but the US delegation at talks in Saudi Arabia last week pushed Kyiv to agree to a full 30-day ceasefire, which was eventually agreed after eight hours of talks.
If upheld by both sides, a halt to attacks on energy infrastructure would mark the first part-ceasefire in more than three years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Russia has been relentlessly targeting Ukraine’s infrastructure for the past three years, while in recent months Ukraine has been increasingly able to hit targets deep inside Russia with long-range drones.
In Moscow, senior Russian officials signalled their satisfaction with Putin’s conversation with Trump. Kirill Dmitriev, a senior aide close to Putin, wrote on X: “It is official now – a PERFECT call.”
There remains no indication that Putin has abandoned any of his most hardline objectives in the war in Ukraine.
Kommersant, a well-connected Russian newspaper, reported on Wednesday that Putin told a meeting of senior business leaders on Tuesday that he intends to continue the fighting until he gets full control of, as well as international recognition over, the four regions Moscow annexed in 2022.
On Wednesday, Zelenskyy reiterated that Ukraine would never recognise any occupied territories as part of Russia.
“The key thing is not to lose our independence, our state’s sovereignty, and to ensure that Russia never, ever has any influence over Ukraine’s freedom,” he said.
Zelenskyy also rejected any discussion on the role or size of Ukraine’s military, firmly rebuffing one of Putin’s key demands, to impose a cap on its armed forces.
