Won't hit Ukraine energy infra: Russia agrees to 30-day Trump truce plan

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday agreed to a proposal by US President Donald Trump for Moscow and Kyiv to stop attacks on each other's energy infrastructure for 30 days and ordered the Russian military to cease the strikes, the Kremlin said.

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Russia has pounded Ukrainian energy installations and its electricity grid throughout the war, and Kyiv has responded with damaging strikes on refineries and fuel depots.

If implemented, Tuesday's agreement would represent a genuine de-escalation in the three-year war.

However, the agreement fell short of a wider truce that the US had sought, and which was accepted by Ukraine.

In a statement, the White House said Putin and Trump agreed to seek a 30-day ceasefire against energy and infrastructure targets in Ukraine, while talks aimed at advancing toward a broader peace plan would begin "immediately".

The Russian President raised "significant points" about preventing such a truce from being used by Ukraine to mobilise more soldiers and rearm itself, the Kremlin said following a two-hour-long phone call between the two leaders.

Putin also emphasised that the "complete cessation of foreign military assistance and the provision of intelligence information to Kyiv" was a condition for any permanent peace deal.

In its statement, the White House said negotiations on a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea, as well as other potential areas of concern, would commence immediately in the West Asia.

"The leaders agreed that the movement to peace will begin with an energy and infrastructure ceasefire, as well as technical negotiations on implementation of a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea, full ceasefire and permanent peace," the White House readout said.

Trump had been pressuring Putin to agree to a 30-day ceasefire that he hopes would move one step closer to ending Europe's biggest conflict since World War II. The war has killed or wounded hundreds of thousands of people, displaced millions and reduced towns to rubble.

Trump has hinted that a permanent peace deal could include territorial concessions by Kyiv and control of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

Trump's overtures to Putin since returning to the White House in January have left traditional US allies wary.

Ukraine and its Western allies have long described Russia's invasion of Ukraine as an imperialist land grab, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Putin of deliberately prolonging the war.

Zelenskyy, who arrived in Finland on Tuesday to discuss the NATO state's support for Ukraine, says Ukraine's sovereignty is not negotiable and Russia must surrender the territory it has seized. He says Moscow's ambitions will not stop at Ukraine if it is allowed to keep the territory it has seized.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned on Tuesday that Russia had massively expanded its military-industrial production capacity in preparation for "future confrontation with European democracies."

Speaking to Trump late on Monday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer "reiterated that all must work together to put Ukraine in the strongest possible position to secure a just and lasting peace," the British leader's spokesperson said. — Reuters