Russia and Ukraine said on Friday they had halted strikes on each other’s energy infrastructure but differences emerged over the timeframe for the moratorium and there was uncertainty about the next step in talks to end the nearly four-year-old war.
The Kremlin said it had agreed to U.S. President Donald Trump’s request to halt strikes on energy targets, which have knocked out power and heating to hundreds of Kyiv apartment buildings. But spokesman Dmitry Peskov indicated the measure would end on Sunday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia had conducted virtually no strikes in the past 24 hours, though he and his prime minister said Moscow had reoriented its strategy and were now hitting logistical points, notably rail junctions.
Zelenskiy said the moratorium for strikes on energy infrastructure had gone into effect for a week, starting from Friday at midnight. He also noted there was no formal truce between the two countries as the Ukrainian capital braced for another bitterly cold spell from Sunday.
“In all our regions, there were indeed no strikes on energy facilities from Thursday night to Friday,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address. “Ukraine is ready in reciprocal terms to refrain from strikes and today we did not strike at Russian energy facilities.”
The Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin had accepted Trump’s request to stop bombarding Kyiv to create “favourable conditions” for peace talks.
