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US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed in a phone call Tuesday on a temporary pause on attacks on energy and infrastructure in the Ukraine war.
If sealed, the initial pact would be followed by a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea, and then a full ceasefire, according to readouts from Moscow and Washington. Negotiations are set to begin immediately in the Middle East, the White House said.
The Kremlin said Putin had told Russia’s military to “immediately” cease targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure for 30 days. In the more than 90-minute-long phone call the two leaders apparently agreed that the war in Ukraine should be brought to an end with a durable peace — but crucially, the Putin did not agree to the broader ceasefire Washington and Kyiv have pushed for.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he supported the new energy and infrastructure ceasefire proposal, and said he hoped to speak with Trump shortly: “I think it will be right that we will have a conversation with President Trump and we will know in detail what the Russians offered the Americans or what the Americans offered the Russians.”
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According to the Russian readout of the call, Putin stressed a number of conditions for resolving the conflict, including “the complete cessation of foreign military aid and the provision of intelligence to Kyiv” and the need to stop mobilization in Ukraine — those terms run counter to Kyiv’s desire for an unconditional ceasefire, leaving the future of negotiations unclear. “They are talking, but really the real takeaway is there is no ceasefire agreement,” one analyst told Reuters.
While one Ukrainian analyst said Russia’s demands were “impossible” for Kyiv to meet, Russian special envoy Kirill Dmitriev described it as “a PERFECT call.”
After the conversation, Ukrainian media reported that Russia had struck targets across Ukraine, with politicians and local outlets said led to power outages in one eastern city.
It is unclear whether the two leaders discussed where a ceasefire line would be drawn, but ahead of the talks, Trump had told reporters, “I think we will be talking about land.”
“We’ll be talking about power plants,” he had said, likely a reference to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, which Russia occupied in 2022.
Trump is also considering whether to recognize Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014, as Russian territory as part of any future peace deal, Semafor reported.