Moscow/Washington: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday agreed to halt attacks on energy and infrastructure targets in Ukraine for 30 days, the White House and Kremlin both said, after the leader’s lengthy phone call with his US counterpart Donald Trump.
The development is an apparent step forward in working out a broader ceasefire arrangement to end the three-year-long conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
The high-stakes call between the two presidents lasted about two hours.
The two leaders’ conversation, their second since Trump entered office, appeared to stop short of convincing Putin to sign off on the 30-day truce that the US president has endorsed and Ukraine has agreed to, CNN reported.
Instead, the White House said a narrower pause on hitting energy targets would go into place, while technical teams begin sorting out other areas in negotiations.
“The leaders agreed that the movement to peace will begin with an energy and infrastructure ceasefire, as well as technical negotiations on the implementation of a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea, full ceasefire and permanent peace,” the White House wrote in its description of the call. It said the technical negotiations would begin “immediately” in the Middle East.
The Kremlin’s description of the call said Trump “put forward a proposal for the parties to the conflict to mutually refrain from attacks on energy infrastructure facilities for 30 days.
”Putin “responded positively to this initiative and immediately gave the Russian military the corresponding order,” Moscow’s readout said.
Putin also demanded a halt of foreign military aid to Ukraine, the Kremlin said, though the White House made no mention of that in its statement. And neither the White House nor the Kremlin brought up land concessions in their official descriptions of Trump and Putin’s conversation.
Ahead of the call, Trump said US negotiators had discussed “dividing up certain assets.
”The two leaders agreed that a future with an improved bilateral relationship between the United States and Russia has a huge upside,” the White House said in its statement. “This includes enormous economic deals and geopolitical stability when peace has been achieved.”
BBC reported that on Wednesday, Russia and Ukraine will exchange 175 prisoners of war, and 23 seriously injured Ukrainian soldiers being treated in Russia will be transferred.
Russia also demanded there should be no more mobilisation or rearmament from Ukraine during the 30-day ceasefire.
Negotiations to end the war kicked off after Trump and Putin spoke by phone last month, marking a resumption of communication after a long period of silence between the White House and the Kremlin.
Since then, Trump hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for an Oval Office meeting that ended with Trump and Vice President JD Vance shouting at him and asking the Ukrainians to leave, followed by the US temporarily pausing military assistance and intelligence sharing.
Weeks of intense back-and-forth negotiations between top US, Russian and Ukrainian officials led to a breakthrough, with the announcement of a US-led ceasefire proposal.
After Zelensky said last week that his country had accepted the 30-day proposal, the US made clear the onus was on Russia to agree, with Trump saying, “Russia holds all the cards.”Efforts to bring Russia closer to an agreement intensified with Witkoff’s visit to Moscow on Thursday, where he met directly with Putin for several hours. UNI
