Ukraine has accused Russia of attacking a power plant in Kyiv shortly after Donald Trump announced an “energy ceasefire” between the two countries.
In an unexpected social media post, the US president said both sides had agreed to the arrangement and issued a warning: “Do not break it!”
Volodymyr Zelensky said the agreement was “news for me”, but indicated that Ukraine would accept it if Moscow also agreed to the terms.
The Ukrainian president later accused Vladimir Putin of targeting energy facilities within hours of the ceasefire announcement.
In a post on X, Zelensky said he had briefed European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen about the “brutal Russian strikes that continue unabated”.
“Just before our conversation, the Russians struck a power plant in Kyiv with a ‘shahed’ drone, and many districts experienced power outages,” he said.
“Later, there were strikes on energy facilities in the Kharkiv region.”
“And all of this happened AFTER the President of the United States made his statement about an energy ceasefire,” he added.
Emergency services personnel extinguish a fire following a reported Russian attack on an industrial facility in Bucha district, Kyiv region, Ukraine, on October 11
Volodymyr Zelensky described the “energy ceasefire” as “news for me”, but said he would agree if Moscow did the same
Vladimir Putin has been accused of targeting energy facilities within hours of Trump announcing an agreement between the two sides
Trump’s announcement came just days after he unveiled a deal to import nearly two million tonnes of Russian diesel over the coming months.
The president is facing pressure to bring down fuel prices as the US approaches next month’s midterm elections, which are expected to be extremely difficult for his Republican Party.
Moscow had not immediately commented on the proposed “energy ceasefire”.
Zelensky said Ukraine welcomed Trump’s announcement as “good news for everyone”, while accusing Moscow of continuing to attack energy infrastructure in Kyiv and Kharkiv.
“Unfortunately, Ukrainian skies have been infested with Russian ‘shaheds’ all day today,” he said in an evening address, referring to drones launched by Russia.
“There have been glide bomb strikes and strikes on our energy infrastructure too. A power plant in Kharkiv was attacked this evening.”
The Ukrainian presidential office said the attack on Kharkiv occurred after Trump’s ceasefire post.
Zelensky said Ukraine was “ready to refrain from striking Russian energy infrastructure” and expected Russia to show the same willingness.
The announcement followed Trump’s deal, unveiled days earlier, to import nearly two million tonnes of Russian diesel over the next few months
Russia has sought to deny Ukrainian civilians power, heat and running water during the war, hoping to wear down public resistance to Moscow’s full-scale invasion.
Ukrainian officials describe the strategy as ‘weaponising winter’.
Zelensky said Ukraine has proposed many de-escalatory steps but Putin ‘had one answer to all of them – “nyet.” We do hope that he will finally say something different to America, Ukraine, and the entire world’.
He said Kyiv is maintaining contact with the US, and he thanked Americans for their support.
He said on 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 striking Russian refineries if Moscow halted attacks on Ukraine’s energy system, and he asked Trump to press the Kremlin to agree.
‘We are asking President Trump, (to) give them (a) signal, not (to) attack energy infrastructure of Ukraine,’ he told ABC’s ‘This Week’.
On September 14, Trump claimed on social media that both countries had agreed ‘not to hit’ each other’s energy infrastructure but offered no details on that proposal either.
While Zelensky had said Ukraine was ready to comply if Russia did, nothing came of the proposal.
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.
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. Total ceasefire, 60 days, and we will organize elections,’ he said, adding that Ukraine would be ready to accept whatever choice its people made.
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‘With all respect to President Trump, it’s up to our society, up to our people to choose one or another leader,’ he said.
Holding an election during the war would be unlawful and that Ukraine would need security guarantees to allow for safe voting, Zelensky added.
Ukraine has been under martial law since Putin launched the 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 attacks, and organising one is widely seen as logistically impossible, with roughly a fifth of the country held by Russia, millions of Ukrainians displaced abroad and soldiers on the front line.
Zelensky’s term formally expired in May 2024, but the constitution allows him to remain in office until a new president is sworn in.
The exchange came as Kyiv pressed its campaign against Russian infrastructure, with a drone attack on Sunday shutting down a data centre in the city of Vladimir, east of Moscow, run by technology giant Yandex.
It was the third strike on the company’s facilities in four days.
Russia and Ukraine have been waging a long-range aerial war while their armies remain largely deadlocked on the front line.
Trump, who on Friday struck a deal with Putin to buy diesel from Moscow in an attempt to address high fuel prices ahead of US midterm elections, has been urging Zelensky for weeks to stop striking Russian energy infrastructure.
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’s war effort.
Zelensky responded by describing the deal as a ‘gift to Putin’ that ‘played into Russia’s hands’ and would extend the war.
The Ukrainian drone attack on the Yandex data centre in Vladimir caused outages across the company’s 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.
‘Operations at the data centre have been completely halted. There were no injuries,’ said the Yandex Cloud Telegram channel, which updates service availability.
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 he had to cancel several rides after waiting a long time because he could not reach the passenger.
‘I’d 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 on an order on the Yandex Market shopping platform but the page was unavailable, and connecting through a virtual private network did not help.
‘Nothing worked,’ he said.
Another Muscovite, Eduard Malyavko, said the outages had a ‘direct impact’ and weren’t just about ‘convenience’.
He said they affected ‘healthcare, and everything else’.
On Thursday, a drone attack took a Yandex data centre offline in the Ryazan region, southeast of Moscow.
The next day, Ukrainian drones hit the company’s major data centre 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 Russia’s artificial intelligence development.
Elsewhere, search and rescue operations ended in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia after a Russian bombing on Saturday, according to Ivan Fedorov, former regional head and co-chair of the regional defense council.
Zelensky said 23 people were killed in the attack, including four children.
More than 30 people were wounded, with eight still hospitalised.
A man was killed and two women wounded in a Ukrainian drone strike on Russia’s Bryansk border region.
UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Britain supports calls for a ‘sustained energy ceasefire’.
‘Russia has intensified its strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure over the weekend,’ he wrote on X.
‘This is an attack on Ukrainian civilians, plunging them into cold and darkness.
‘The UK strongly supports President Trump’s call today for a sustained energy ceasefire to start now.’