Trump says he asked Putin not to target Kyiv for 1 week during brutal cold spell
Although Trump says he asked the Russian leader to hold off attacks in the bitter conditions, the Kremlin has not confirmed the request.
KYIV, Ukraine — President Donald Trump said Thursday that President Vladimir Putin has agreed not to target the Ukrainian capital and other towns for one week as the region experiences frigid temperatures. There was no immediate confirmation from the Kremlin that Putin has agreed to such a pause.
Russia has been pounding Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, hoping to wear down public resistance to the war while leaving many around the country having to endure the dead of winter without heat.
“I personally asked President Putin not to fire on Kyiv and the cities and towns for a week during this ... extraordinary cold,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, adding that Putin has “agreed to that.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was asked earlier Thursday whether a mutual halt on strikes on energy facilities was being discussed between Russia and Ukraine, and he refused to comment on the issue.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky late Wednesday had warned that Moscow was planning another large-scale barrage despite plans for further U.S.-brokered peace talks at the weekend.
Trump said he was pleased that Putin has agreed to the pause. Kyiv, which has grappled with severe power shortages this winter, is forecast to enter a brutally cold stretch starting Friday that is expected to last into next week. Temperatures in some areas will drop to minus-22 Fahrenheit, the State Emergency Service warned.
“A lot of people said, ‘Don’t waste the call. You’re not going to get that.’” the president said of his request of Putin. “And he did it. And we’re very happy that they did it.”
Zelensky, for his part, thanked Trump for his effort and welcomed the “possibility” of a pause in Russian military action on Kyiv and beyond. “Power supply is a foundation of life,” Zelensky said in his social media post.
Trump did not say when the call with Putin took place or when the ceasefire would go into effect. The White House did not immediately respond to a query seeking clarity about the scope and timing of the limited pause in the nearly four-year war.
Russia has sought to deny Ukrainian civilians heat and running water over the course of the war, which began with Russia’s full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022. Ukrainian officials describe the strategy as “weaponizing winter.”
Last year was the deadliest for civilians in Ukraine since 2022 as Russia intensified its aerial barrages behind the front line, according to the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in the country.
The war killed 2,514 civilians and injured 12,142 in Ukraine — 31% higher than in 2024, it said.
A Russian drone attack killed three people in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region overnight and caused a major blaze in an apartment building, officials said Thursday.
Firefighters also worked through the night to put out fires in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, where two people were injured, officials said.
Zelensky said Ukrainian intelligence reports indicate Russia is assembling forces for a major aerial attack. Previous large attacks, sometimes involving more than 800 drones as well as cruise and ballistic missiles, have targeted the Ukrainian power grid.
The ongoing attacks discredit the peace talks, Zelensky said. “Every single Russian strike does,” he said late Wednesday.
Russia’s daily bombardment of civilian areas behind the roughly 600-mile front line has continued despite international condemnation and attempts to end the fighting.
Ukraine is working with SpaceX to address the reported use of its Starlink satellite service by Russian attack drones, Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said Thursday on the Telegram messaging app.
He said his team contacted the American aerospace company run by Elon Musk and “proposed ways to resolve the issue.” Starlink is a global internet network that relies on around 10,000 satellites orbiting Earth.
Fedorov thanked Musk and SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell for their “swift response and the start of work on resolving the situation.”
Musk and SpaceX have sought to steer a delicate course in the war.
Shotwell said a year after the invasion that SpaceX was happy to provide Ukrainians with connectivity “and help them in their fight for freedom.” At the same time, the company sought to restrict Ukraine’s use of Starlink for military purposes, she said.
Negotiations between the two sides are poised to resume on Sunday amid doubts about Moscow’s commitment to a settlement.
The European Union’s top diplomat accused Russia of not taking the talks seriously, calling Thursday in Brussels for more pressure to be exerted on Moscow to press it into making concessions.
“We see them increasing their attacks on Ukraine because they can’t make moves on the battlefield. So, they are attacking civilians,” Kaja Kallas said of Russia at a meeting of EU foreign ministers.
She stressed that Europe, which sees its own future security at stake in Ukraine, must be fully involved in talks to end the war. The push for a settlement has been led over the past year by the Trump administration, and European leaders fear their concerns may not be taken into account.
Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy, said Thursday “a lot of progress” was made in recent three-way talks and expressed optimism that more headway can be made when the parties meet again in the coming days.
“I think the people of Ukraine are now hopeful and expecting that we are going to deliver a peace deal sometime soon,” Witkoff added.
The number of soldiers killed, injured or missing on both sides during the war could reach 2 million by spring, with Russia suffering the largest number of troop deaths for any major power in any conflict since World War II, according to an international think tank report published Tuesday.