Following a personal request from Donald Trump, Putin has agreed to stop bombing Ukrainian cities for a week during cold temperatures.
The temporary winter ceasefire comes as millions of Ukrainian citizens remain frozen in sub-zero conditions under a relentless onslaught of Russian attacks targeting the power grid.
President Trump announced the temporary peace deal amid concerns that the Kremlin’s attacks are pushing the war-torn country toward a humanitarian crisis.
he agreed to do that.”
“I personally asked President Putin not to fire in Kyiv and various cities for a week and he agreed to do that,” Trump said at a Cabinet meeting, citing “extraordinary cold” in the region.
“It was very good. A lot of people said, ‘Don’t waste the call; you won’t get it.’ And they did,” Trump said.
In return, the Ukrainian military has reportedly been ordered not to attack Russia’s power systems, Wire.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said representatives discussed an agreement not to attack energy infrastructure during recent talks in the United Arab Emirates.
“We hope the agreements will be implemented,” Zelensky wrote on Twitter.
“De-escalation steps contribute to real progress toward ending the war.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on the reports.
The call to end the airstrikes comes after Russia repeatedly destroyed Ukraine’s vital infrastructure, leaving many people across the country without heat and electricity in the winter.
Ukrainian officials have described this strategy as weaponising winter – Putin is perhaps hoping to reduce the public’s resistance to war as they suffer from plunging temperatures without electricity.
Two previous Russian missile and drone attacks on the capital, Kiev, in January left nearly a million people without power and 6,000 apartment buildings without heating.
After several weeks of repairs, about 700 buildings still lack heat.
Writing on Telegram after a meeting dedicated to energy on Wednesday, Energy Minister Denis Schmihal said 610,000 Kyiv households remained without electricity.
Severe cold is expected in Kiev from Friday and is expected to continue. next week.
According to the official forecast, temperatures in the northern and eastern parts of Ukraine are expected to remain below -20 degrees Celsius, which is extremely low for the country.
However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky raised fears of new Russian attacks on energy facilities in an evening address on Wednesday.
Zelensky said Ukrainian intelligence reports indicated that Russia was gathering forces for a major air strike.
In previous major attacks, sometimes as many as 800 drones as well as cruise and ballistic missiles have targeted the Ukrainian power grid.
Trump further said that “a lot of progress”
has been made in US-brokered talks between Kiev and Moscow to end Russia’s aggression on its pro-Western neighbour, which will soon enter its fifth year.
However, Kyiv’s Foreign Minister Andriy Sibiha has made it clear that Zelensky is ready to meet the Russian dictator for showdown talks for the first time since the war began in 2022.
Cybiha says the only way both issues can be resolved is for the two leaders to do so individually.
He said today: “It is to address these issues that the President is prepared to meet and discuss them with Putin.”
It comes as trilateral talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators are expected to continue on Sunday with US mediators in Abu Dhabi.
Zelensky said the first round of talks last week yielded no breakthrough in ending the bloody four-year war, although a US plan to guarantee Ukraine’s security is “100 per cent” ready for signature.
The Ukrainian leader said he was waiting for the time and place to sign the US documents, which would be a major step towards ending Vladimir Putin’s bloody war.
After this it will be sent to the US Congress and the Ukrainian Parliament for approval.
Zelensky said: “For us, the security guarantee is the first and foremost guarantee of security from the United States.”
“The document is 100 per cent ready, and we are waiting for our partners to confirm the date and location when we will sign it.”
Putin is obsessed with swallowing up the entire Donbass region and says he will stop his invasion only if Zelensky gives up the entire region.
Ukraine is adamant that they should not give up the land they have fought for four years to keep.
Another important issue is who controls the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest.
Russia stole the plant from Kyiv in 2022 and is refusing to give it back.
New analysis shows that Mad Vlad’s desperate boys are capturing between 15 and 70 metres of territory per day by the beginning of 2024.
That said, this pitiful advance of the Russian army is slower than many of the difficult campaigns of World War I, according to a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
