US President Donald Trump has announced an immediate “energy ceasefire” in the Ukraine war, saying Russia and Ukraine had both agreed to stop attacking each other’s energy installations. Neither government confirmed any such deal.
The announcement came in a post on his Truth Social platform on the morning of October 11. “Do not break it!” Trump wrote, giving no detail on the scope, duration or verification of the arrangement.
Within hours Ukraine reported fresh Russian strikes on its power network, including a plant in Kyiv and energy facilities in the Kharkiv region, in the east of the country. The Ukrainian presidential office said the Kharkiv attack came after Trump’s post.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the declaration had taken him by surprise, telling Axios that it “was news for me”. Writing on X, he said Kyiv supported a ceasefire and that it was now for Russia to do the same.
Earlier the same day Zelensky had offered to halt strikes on Russian refineries if Moscow stopped hitting Ukraine’s grid, a conditional offer he has repeated since September. The Kremlin made no public response.
It is the second such declaration in under a month. Trump made a near-identical claim in mid-September, announcing an energy truce that neither side acknowledged, after which attacks on refineries and power stations carried on.
The latest statement follows the October 9 deal under which Washington suspended its own sanctions to allow up to 4.8 million tonnes of Russian diesel on to world markets, agreed in a telephone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The US Treasury issued a licence covering those cargoes until April 7, 2027.
European Union and British bans on Russian refined products remain fully in force, so European refiners, hauliers and farmers are excluded from the cheaper barrels Washington has unlocked for itself. The bloc is at the same time under American pressure to open its emergency fuel stocks, with average EU pump prices at a record €2.24 a litre according to European Commission figures.
Trump has blamed Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian refineries, rather than the war in Iran, for the surge in fuel prices, and had previously suggested Ukraine needed a new leader. Zelensky described the diesel agreement as a gift to Moscow and warned that easing sanctions without a de-escalation deal would be read in the Kremlin as weakness.
A White House official said the understanding covered oil refineries and that Trump expected Zelensky to abide by it. Ukraine wants power plants and the electricity grid included, and Moscow has so far accepted nothing.
