Russia has halted strikes against Ukraine after US President Donald Trump's appeal to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
“Russia has not been shelling for some time because of this terrible cold weather“, the US president said during an event in the Oval Office.
Earlier, Trump said at a meeting at the White House that he personally called on the Russian president to halt strikes for a week due to severe frosts (in early February, according to the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Center, night temperatures in some regions of Ukraine could drop to minus 27 degrees Celsius). According to the Republican, Putin agreed.
White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles received a memo during a cabinet meeting about a conversation between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, the White House press service reported.
A note, “with additional details of the conversation with Putin”, was handed to her by the US President’s special envoy Steve Witkoff. The correspondents were unable to understand the exact text, but they saw the name “Putin”, according to Daily Mail journalist Nikki Schwab.
The same words were quoted in X by Kyiv Post journalist Alex Rafoglou in Washington.
According to the FT, an “energy ceasefire” may have been one of the topics of the trilateral talks between Russia, Ukraine and the United States in Abu Dhabi, which took place behind closed doors on January 23-24.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed that “the teams discussed this in the Emirates”. He also thanked Trump and added that Kiev expects a pause in energy strikes. “We expect the agreements to be implemented. De-escalation steps contribute to real progress towards ending the war“, he wrote on social media.
However, Moscow has not confirmed the “energy ceasefire“. The Kremlin has not commented on reports of an alleged agreement with Kiev, nor on talks on the issue, said Russian President Vladimir Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov.
The idea of an “energy ceasefire“ implies a moratorium on strikes against energy facilities. In the spring of 2025, Russia had already announced the introduction of such a moratorium: it was introduced on March 18 for a period of 30 days. The ban on attacks was the result of negotiations between Moscow and Washington. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Moscow strictly observes the ban on attacks, although Russian targets continue to be the subject of attacks.