Trump says Russia and Ukraine agree to an ‘energy ceasefire’ but Kyiv says attacks continue

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to an “energy ceasefire” in the 4 1/2-year-old war, but he offered no details on it and Kyiv reported attacks by Moscow on energy sites after his statement.

Trump’s brief social media post said only that the ceasefire took effect immediately, adding: “Do not break it!”

Moscow did not immediately comment. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that while his country “welcomed” the announcement by Trump as “good news for everyone,” Russia was still hitting energy infrastructure in Kyiv and in the city of Kharkiv.

“Unfortunately, Ukrainian skies have been infested with Russian ‘shaheds’ all day today,” he said in an evening address, referring to drones launched by Moscow . “There have been glide bomb strikes and strikes on our energy infrastructure too. A power plant in Kharkiv was attacked this evening.”

The presidential office confirmed the Kharkiv attack came after Trump’s ceasefire post.

Zelenskyy said Ukraine was “ready to refrain from striking Russian energy infrastructure — and we count on the same readiness from Russia.”

Russia has sought to deny Ukrainian civilians power, heat and running water during the war, hoping to wear down public resistance to Moscow’s full-scale invasion. Ukrainian officials describe the strategy as “weaponizing winter.”

Zelenskyy said Ukraine has proposed many de-escalatory steps but Russian President Vladimir Putin “had one answer to all of them — ‘nyet.’ We do hope that he will finally say something different to America, Ukraine, and the entire world.”

He said Kyiv is maintaining contact with the U.S., and he thanked Americans for their support. He said on X that he had spoken about the development with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Finnish President Alexander Stubb and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte.

In an interview broadcast earlier Sunday, Zelenskyy said Kyiv was ready to stop striking Russian refineries if Moscow halted attacks on Ukraine’s energy system, and he asked Trump to press the Kremlin to agree.

“We are asking President Trump, (to) give them (a) signal, not (to) attack energy infrastructure of Ukraine,” he told ABC’s “This Week .”

On Sept. 14, Trump claimed on social media that both countries had agreed “not to hit” each other’s energy infrastructure but offered no details on that proposal either. While Zelenskyy had said Ukraine was ready to comply if Russia did, nothing came of the proposal.

Trump spars with Zelenskyy

Trump said Saturday it was time for Ukraine to get a new president, suggesting Zelenskyy has not done enough to end the war and blaming him for high diesel prices in the U.S.

Zelenskyy said in response to Trump’s comments that Ukraine could hold elections if Russia agreed to a 60-day ceasefire.

“Give us two months, 60 days off. Total ceasefire, 60 days, and we will organize elections,” he said, adding that Ukraine would be ready to accept whatever choice its people made.

“With all respect to President Trump, it’s up to our society, up to our people to choose one or another leader,” he said. Holding an election during the war would be unlawful and that Ukraine would need security guarantees to allow for safe voting, Zelenskyy added.

Ukraine has been under martial law since Putin launched the full-scale invasion in February 2022, and the Ukrainian Constitution bars elections while it remains in force. Beyond the legal barrier, a nationwide vote would be vulnerable to Russian attacks, and organizing one is widely seen as logistically impossible, with roughly a fifth of the country held by Russia, millions of Ukrainians displaced abroad and soldiers on the front line. Zelenskyy’s term formally expired in May 2024, but the constitution allows him to remain in office until a new president is sworn in.

The exchange came as Kyiv pressed its campaign against Russian infrastructure, with a drone attack on Sunday shutting down a data center in the city of Vladimir, east of Moscow, run by technology giant Yandex. It was the third strike on the company’s facilities in four days.

Russia and Ukraine have been waging a long-range aerial war while their armies remain largely deadlocked on the front line.

Trump, who on Friday struck a deal with Putin to buy diesel from Moscow in an attempt to address high fuel prices ahead of U.S. midterm elections, has been urging Zelenskyy for weeks to stop striking Russian energy infrastructure.

He has sought to blame record U.S. diesel prices on Ukraine rather than the U.S.-led war in Iran, which has driven up world energy prices. Ukrainian and European officials reacted to the diesel deal with dismay, saying it will help pay for Russia’s war effort.

Ukrainian strike on Russian data center triggers outages

The Ukrainian drone attack on the Yandex data center in Vladimir caused outages across the company’s services, leaving users in dozens of Russian cities and in Kazakhstan, Belarus and Armenia unable to order taxis or access banking services, according to Russian independent news outlet Astra.

“Operations at the data center have been completely halted. There were no injuries,” said the Yandex Cloud Telegram channel, which updates service availability.

Moscow residents described disruption to everyday tasks. Pavel Belyavskiy, a driver for Yandex Taxi, said it was unclear whether orders were coming through at all, and that he had to cancel several rides after waiting a long time because he could not reach the passenger.

“I’d press the ‘call’ button to contact them, but nothing happens,” he said. “There’s nothing I can do, so I’m just forced to cancel.”

Igor Mann said he tried to check on an order on the Yandex Market shopping platform but the page was unavailable, and connecting through a virtual private network did not help. “Nothing worked,” he said.

Another Muscovite, Eduard Malyavko, said the outages had a “direct impact” and weren’t just about “convenience.” He said they affected “healthcare, and everything else.”

On Thursday, a drone attack took a Yandex data center offline in the Ryazan region, southeast of Moscow. The next day, Ukrainian drones hit the company’s major data center in the Kaluga region, southwest of Moscow, disabling part of the facility, Yandex said.

Yandex, often described as Russia’s Google, runs the country’s most popular search engine and a wide range of digital services, and is heavily involved in Russia’s artificial intelligence development.

Zaporizhzhia death toll rises to 23

Elsewhere, search and rescue operations ended in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia after a Russian bombing on Saturday, according to Ivan Fedorov, former regional head and co-chair of the regional defense council.

Zelenskyy said 23 people were killed in the attack, including four children. More than 30 people were wounded, Fedorov said, with eight still hospitalized.

A man was killed and two women wounded in a Ukrainian drone strike on Russia’s Bryansk border region, local officials said Sunday.

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Blann reported from Kyiv, Ukraine, and Morton reported from London.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine