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WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said Sunday that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to an \u201cenergy ceasefire,\u201d but offered no details on its terms.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s brief social media post said only that the ceasefire took effect immediately and that both sides had agreed to it. \u201cDo not break it!\u201d he wrote. Neither Moscow nor Kyiv immediately commented on the announcement, and the White House did not immediately clarify the president\u2019s post or add detail.<\/p>\n
His announcement came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in an interview aired Sunday, said Ukraine was ready to stop striking Russian refineries if Moscow halted attacks on Ukraine\u2019s energy system, and asked Trump to press the Kremlin to agree.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are asking President Trump, (to) give them (a) signal, not (to) attack energy infrastructure of Ukraine,\u201d he told ABC\u2019s \u201cThis Week.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump spars with Zelensky<\/strong><\/p>\n Trump said Saturday it was time for Ukraine to get a new president, suggesting Zelensky has not done enough to end the war and blaming him for high diesel prices in the US<\/p>\n Zelensky said in response to Trump\u2019s comments that Ukraine could hold elections if Russia agreed to a 60-day ceasefire. \u201cGive us two months, 60 days off. Total ceasefire, 60 days, and we will organize elections,\u201d he said, adding that Ukraine would be ready to accept whatever choice its people made.<\/p>\n \u201cWith all respect to President Trump, it\u2019s up to our society, up to our people to choose one or another leader,\u201d he said. Zelensky added that holding a vote during the war would be unlawful and that Ukraine would need security guarantees to allow people to vote safely.<\/p>\n Ukraine has been under martial law since Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion in February 2022, and the Ukrainian Constitution bars elections while it remains in force. Beyond the legal barrier, a nationwide vote would be vulnerable to Russian missile and drone attacks, and organizing one is widely seen as logistically impossible, with roughly a fifth of the country under occupation, millions of Ukrainians displaced abroad and soldiers on the front line. Zelensky\u2019s term formally expired in May 2024, but the constitution allows him to remain in office until a new president is sworn in.<\/p>\n The exchange came as Kyiv pressed its campaign against infrastructure deep inside Russia, with a drone attack on Sunday shutting down a data center run by Russian technology giant Yandex, the third strike on the company\u2019s facilities in four days. Russia and Ukraine are locked in a long-range aerial war while their armies remain largely deadlocked on the front line.<\/p>\n The US president, who on Friday struck a deal with Putin to buy diesel from Russia in an attempt to address high fuel prices ahead of US midterm elections, has been urging Zelensky for weeks to stop strikes on Russian energy infrastructure.<\/p>\n He has sought to blame record US diesel prices on Ukraine rather than the US-led war in Iran, which has driven up world energy prices. Ukrainian and European officials reacted to the diesel deal with dismay, saying it will help pay for Russia\u2019s war effort.<\/p>\n Ukrainian strike on Russian data center triggers outages<\/strong><\/p>\n The Ukrainian drone attack on the Yandex data center in the city of Vladimir, east of Moscow, caused outages across the company\u2019s services, leaving users in dozens of Russian cities and in Kazakhstan, Belarus and Armenia unable to order taxis or access banking services, according to Russian independent news outlet Astra.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a result of the drone attack, the infrastructure of Yandex\u2019s data center in Vladimir was damaged. Operations at the data center have been completely halted. There were no injuries,\u201d said the Yandex Cloud Telegram channel, which provides operational updates on service availability.<\/p>\n In Moscow, residents described disruption to everyday tasks. Pavel Belyavskiy, a driver for Yandex Taxi, said it was unclear whether orders were coming through at all, and that on several rides he had to cancel after waiting a long time because he could not reach the passenger.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d press the \u2018call\u2019 button to contact them, but nothing happens,\u201d he said, \u201cThere\u2019s nothing I can do, so I\u2019m just forced to cancel.\u201d<\/p>\n Igor Mann said he went to check the status of an order on the Yandex Market shopping platform but the page was unavailable, and connecting through a VPN did not help. \u201cNothing worked,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Another Moscow resident, Eduard Malyavko, said the outages had \u201cdirect impact\u201d and weren\u2019t just about \u201cconvenience.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s also about work,\u201d he said, adding that they also affected \u201chealth care, and everything else.\u201d<\/p>\n On Thursday, a drone attack took a Yandex data center offline in the Ryazan region, southeast of Moscow. A day later, Ukrainian drones hit the company\u2019s major data center in the Kaluga region, southwest of Moscow, partly putting it out of action, Yandex said.<\/p>\n Yandex, often described as Russia\u2019s Google, runs the country\u2019s most popular search engine and a wide range of digital services, and is heavily involved in Russia\u2019s artificial intelligence development.<\/p>\n Zaporizhzhia death toll rises to 23<\/strong><\/p>\n Elsewhere, Zelensky said search and rescue operations ended in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia after a Russian bombing on Saturday, Ivan Fedorov, the former regional head and co-chair of the regional defense council, said Sunday.<\/p>\n Zelensky said 23 people were killed in the attack, including four children. More than 30 people were wounded, Fedorov said, eight of whom remain hospitalized.<\/p>\n A man was killed and two women wounded in a Ukrainian drone strike on Russia\u2019s Bryansk border region, local officials said Sunday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n