A rescuer puts out a fire in residential houses destroyed during a Russian strike in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Sunday, October 11, 2026.
Andrei Marienko/AP
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Andrei Marienko/AP
WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to an “energy ceasefire” in the 4-1/2-year-old war, but he provided no details and kyiv reported attacks by Moscow on energy sites after his statement.
Trump’s brief social media post said only that the ceasefire was taking effect immediately, adding: “Don’t break it!” »
Moscow had no immediate comment. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that while his country “welcomed” Trump’s announcement as “good news for everyone”, Russia continued to strike energy infrastructure in kyiv and the city of Kharkiv.
“Unfortunately, the Ukrainian sky was infested with Russian ‘shaheds’ all day today,” he said in an evening speech, referring to drones launched by Moscow. “There have been glide bomb strikes and strikes on our energy infrastructure. A power plant in Kharkiv was attacked this evening.”
The presidential office confirmed that the Kharkiv attack took place after Trump announced the ceasefire.
Zelensky said Ukraine was “ready to refrain from hitting Russian energy infrastructure – and we count on the same willingness from Russia.”
Russia sought to deprive Ukrainian civilians of electricity, heat and running water during the war, hoping to wear down public resistance to Moscow’s full-scale invasion. Ukrainian officials describe this strategy as a “winter weapon.”
Zelenskyy said Ukraine had proposed many de-escalation measures, but Russian President Vladimir Putin “had an answer to every one: ‘no.’ We hope that he will finally say something different to America, to Ukraine and to the whole world. »
He said kyiv maintained contacts with the United States and thanked the Americans for their support. He told X that he had spoken about the development with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Finnish President Alexander Stubb and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
In an interview broadcast earlier Sunday, Zelensky said kyiv was ready to stop hitting Russian refineries if Moscow stopped its attacks on Ukraine’s energy system, and he asked Trump to pressure the Kremlin to agree.
“We’re asking President Trump to give them a signal, not to attack Ukraine’s energy infrastructure,” he told ABC’s “This Week.”
On September 14, Trump claimed on social media that the two countries had agreed to “not touch” each other’s energy infrastructure, without giving details of this proposal. While Zelensky said Ukraine was ready to comply if Russia did so, nothing came of this proposal.
Trump speaks with Zelensky
Trump said Saturday it was time for Ukraine to find a new president, suggesting Zelensky did not do enough to end the war and blaming him for high U.S. diesel prices.
Zelensky said in response to Trump’s comments that Ukraine could hold elections if Russia agreed to a 60-day ceasefire.
“Give us two months, 60 days off. A complete ceasefire, 60 days, and we will hold elections,” he said, adding that Ukraine would be ready to accept whatever its people choose.
“With all due respect to President Trump, it is up to our society, our people to choose one leader or the other,” he said. Holding elections during the war would be illegal and Ukraine would need security guarantees to be able to vote safely, Zelenskyy added.
Ukraine has been under martial law since Putin launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022, and Ukraine’s constitution prohibits elections while it remains in force. Beyond the legal barrier, a nationwide vote would be vulnerable to Russian attacks, and organizing is widely seen as logistically impossible, with about a fifth of the country held by Russia, millions of Ukrainians displaced abroad and soldiers on the front lines. Zelensky’s term officially expired in May 2024, but the constitution allows him to remain in office until a new president is sworn in.
The exchange comes as Kiev continues its campaign against Russian infrastructure, with a drone attack on Sunday shutting down a data center in the city of Vladimir, east of Moscow, run by tech giant Yandex. This is the third strike at the company’s facilities in four days.
Russia and Ukraine are waging a long-range air war while their armies remain largely stuck on the front line.
Trump, who struck a deal with Putin on Friday to buy diesel from Moscow in a bid to combat high fuel prices ahead of the U.S. midterm elections, has for weeks been urging Zelensky to stop hitting Russian energy infrastructure.
He sought to blame record U.S. diesel prices on Ukraine rather than the U.S.-led war in Iran, which has driven up global energy prices. Ukrainian and European officials reacted with dismay to the diesel deal, saying it would help fund Russia’s war effort.
Ukrainian strike on Russian data center causes outages
The Ukrainian drone attack on the Yandex data center in Vladimir caused outages in the company’s services, leaving users in dozens of Russian cities as well as in Kazakhstan, Belarus and Armenia unable to order a taxi or access banking services, according to Russian independent media outlet Astra.
“Operations at the data center were completely stopped. There were no injuries,” said the Yandex Cloud Telegram channel, which updates the availability of the service.
Moscow residents described disruptions to their daily tasks. Yandex Taxi driver Pavel Belyavskiy said he wasn’t sure the orders were coming and had to cancel several rides after waiting a long time because he couldn’t reach the passenger.
“I would press the call button to contact them, but nothing happens,” he said. “There’s nothing I can do, so I’m just forced to cancel.”
Igor Mann said he tried to check an order on the Yandex Market shopping platform, but the page was unavailable and connecting via a virtual private network did not help. “Nothing worked,” he said.
Another Muscovite, Eduard Malyavko, said the outages had a “direct impact” and were not just a matter of “convenience.” He said they affected “health care and everything else.”
On Thursday, a drone attack knocked a Yandex data center offline in the Ryazan region, southeast of Moscow. The next day, Ukrainian drones struck the company’s main data center in the Kaluga region, southwest of Moscow, disabling part of the facility, Yandex said.
Yandex, often described as Russia’s Google, runs the country’s most popular search engine and a wide range of digital services, and is heavily involved in the development of artificial intelligence in Russia.
Zaporizhzhia: death toll rises to 23
Elsewhere, search and rescue operations ended Saturday in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia after a Russian bombardment, according to Ivan Fedorov, a former regional chief and co-chairman of the regional defense council.
Zelensky said 23 people were killed in the attack, including four children. More than 30 people were injured, Fedorov said, and eight remain hospitalized.
A man was killed and two women injured in a Ukrainian drone strike in the Russian border region of Bryansk, local officials said Sunday.
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