Moscow and Kyiv haven’t confirmed the “energy ceasefire” US President Donald Trump announced Sunday, and Russian drones hit power plants in Kyiv and Kharkiv within hours. Trump wrote on social media that “both parties have agreed” to a truce effective immediately, without giving terms, a start time, or a duration.
The Kremlin has said nothing publicly about it, and Moscow hasn’t commented on the strikes either. Moscow is seeking sanctions relief in the energy truce talks, US and Ukrainian officials told the Kyiv Independent on October 9, speaking anonymously. The US issued a license that day allowing transactions in Russian-origin diesel.
Related: US May End Up Buying Iranian Diesel Through Russia Under Trump’s New Deal
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Ukraine says it had no advance word of the deal. President Volodymyr Zelensky said the announcement was news to him but that Ukraine supports a truce if Russia does too. He said Ukraine is “ready not to strike at Russian energy” and counts on the same from Moscow.
Zelensky reported that a Shahed drone hit a Kyiv power station and caused outages in several districts. A local official said Kharkiv’s CHP-5 power plant took at least two hits and caught fire. These accounts are Ukrainian and haven’t been independently verified.
The Institute for the Study of War said in its assessment that neither Russia nor Ukraine has “officially announced or recognized an energy ceasefire.” It reported that a senior Ukrainian official told the Financial Times that Kyiv was in the dark when Trump posted. Russian military bloggers questioned the claim, including a Kremlin-linked one who found it strange that Washington, not Moscow or Kyiv, broke the news. The institute concluded the doubts signal that Moscow isn’t ready to honor a truce.
It isn’t Trump’s first such announcement. He made a similar claim on September 14, and both sides carried on hitting energy targets afterward.
Fuel prices remain near records. US diesel averaged about $6.28 a gallon on October 9, below the $6.53 record set September 22 but up from $3.68 a year earlier, according to AAA figures. Regular gasoline averages $4.35, down a cent on the week. Brent crude slipped 1.5% to roughly $103 a barrel Monday on expectations of more Russian diesel and a pause in energy strikes, one report says.
When Trump first claimed a truce in September, he said Russia’s war on Ukraine, not the US war with Iran, was driving diesel prices higher. He has since pressed Kyiv to stop hitting Russian refineries, and the new announcement came two days after his deal to bring Russian diesel to the US.
Related: Diesel Hits Its Highest Price In History As Trump Still Blames Ukraine, Not Iran
