(AFP) – Ukraine will halt long-range strikes on Russian energy facilities if Russia does the same, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in remarks released Friday, after Donald Trump raised hopes for a pause in attacks during freezing temperatures. Trump said Thursday that his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin agreed to halt attacks on Kyiv and other cities because of a cold snap across Ukraine. The Kremlin said Friday the US president had asked for a halt until February 1.
Recent Russian strikes on Ukraine’s power infrastructure have disrupted light, heating, and water supplies, with temperatures plummeting and leaving the war-battered country facing a fresh humanitarian crisis. Despite Trump’s claim, Moscow’s forces launched dozens of drones and one missile at Ukraine overnight, according to the Ukrainian air force. The attacks damaged a residential building in the central Zaporizhzhia region and civilian infrastructure in the northern Chernigiv region, officials said.
Zelensky, who welcomed Trump’s announcement, told journalists, including from AFP: “If Russia does not strike our energy infrastructure – generation facilities or any other energy assets – we will not strike theirs,” in comments released under embargo until Friday. Trump and Zelensky’s comments on a possible de-escalation of the war, which is nearing its four-year anniversary, come just days before Russian and Ukrainian negotiators are set to meet for a second round of talks in Abu Dhabi. Those talks, which follow previous meetings last week, are expected to center on key unresolved issues—particularly territorial control over Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.
Ukraine said that Russian forces had launched 111 attack drones and one missile overnight, wounding one person in a residential building in the industrial city of Zaporizhzhia. Officials in the northern Chernigiv region said that Russian drones had targeted civilian infrastructure in the territory’s main city, also called Chernigiv, without elaborating. Trump said he had personally asked Putin to hold off on attacking Kyiv and other cities and towns, without giving further details. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday that Trump “did indeed make a personal request to President Putin to refrain from striking Kyiv for a week until February 1 in order to create favorable conditions for negotiations.” He did not say when the request was made.
Russia has systematically targeted energy facilities each winter of the war, but this year’s campaign comes during one of the coldest winter seasons in years, which is complicating repair work. Ukraine’s weather agency forecasts a dip to as low as minus 30C in the coming days. “They’ve never experienced cold like that. And I personally asked President Putin not to fire into Kyiv and the various towns for a week. And he agreed to do that, and I have to tell you, it was very nice,” Trump said during a cabinet meeting on Thursday. Zelensky said he was counting on Washington to secure the pause, which had initially been discussed last weekend during the first session of trilateral talks in the UAE.
Those meetings saw the three sides discussing territorial issues openly for the first time, Zelensky said, but negotiators have not made any breakthrough on the key sticking point of control over the eastern Donetsk region. “So far, we have been unable to find a compromise on the territorial issue, specifically regarding part of eastern Ukraine,” Zelensky said. The Kremlin is demanding that Ukraine withdraw its troops from the region, where Ukrainian troops still control large population centers. Kyiv rejects that demand.
“We have repeatedly said that we are ready for compromises that lead to a real end to the war, but that are in no way related to changes to Ukraine’s territorial integrity,” Zelensky said. One of the last few remaining areas of cooperation between Moscow and Kyiv is the exchange of prisoners of war and remains of killed soldiers, an issue that the sides made progress on during talks in Turkey last year. Russia has, however, halted prisoner swaps, Zelensky said. “They are not particularly interested in exchanging people, because they do not feel that it gives them anything.”
– Barbara WOJAZER
© 2024 AFP
