Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said a vow by his Russia counterpart Vladimir Putin not to attack energy infrastructure was “very much at odds with reality” following an overnight barrage of drone strikes across the country.
Mr Zelenskiy said he would speak with US president Donald Trump later in the day and expected to hear more about the American leader’s phone call with Mr Putin about a ceasefire and to discuss the next steps to be taken.
Mr Zelenskiy said at a news conference in Helsinki with Finnish president Alexander Stubb: “Even last night, after Putin’s conversation with ... Trump, when Putin said that he was allegedly giving orders to stop strikes on Ukrainian energy, there were 150 drones launched overnight, including on energy facilities.”
The strikes, which hit civilian areas and damaged a hospital, followed Mr Putin’s refusal to back a full 30-day ceasefire during discussions with Mr Trump.
The White House described the call between Mr Trump and Mr Putin as the first step in a “movement to peace” that Washington hopes will include a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea and eventually a full and lasting end to the fighting.
But there was no indication that Mr Putin had backed away from his conditions for a prospective peace deal, which are fiercely opposed by Kyiv.
Mr Zelenskiy said that one of the most difficult issues in future negotiations would be the issue of territorial concessions.
“For us, the red line is the recognition of the Ukrainian temporarily occupied territories as Russian,” he said. “We will not go for it.”
The Kremlin said on Wednesday that Mr Putin and Mr Trump have a good rapport and are determined to restore badly damaged US-Russia ties step-by-step.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was speaking after the US and Russian leaders spoke by phone on Tuesday and the Russian leader agreed to stop attacking Ukrainian energy facilities temporarily but declined to endorse a full 30-day ceasefire that Mr Trump had hoped would be the first step towards a permanent peace deal.
“I can say with a high degree of confidence that presidents Putin and Trump understand each other well, trust each other and intend to work towards the normalisation of Russian-American relations step-by-step”, Mr Peskov said.
He said there had long been a direct phone line between the presidents of the two countries and a video-link when necessary, but that it had hardly been used during Joe Biden’s administration. He said Putin hoped it could now be used more often.
Shortly after the lengthy phone call between Mr Trump and Mr Putin on Tuesday, however, air raid sirens sounded in Kyiv, followed by explosions as residents took shelter.
Despite efforts to repel the attack, several strikes hit civilian infrastructure, including a direct drone strike on a hospital in Sumy and attacks on cities in Donetsk region.
Russian drones were also reported over Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Sumy, Chernihiv, Poltava, Kharkiv, Kirovohrad, Dnipropetrovsk, and Cherkasy regions.
The Russian defence ministry reported on Wednesday that its air defences intercepted 57 Ukrainian drones over the Azov Sea and several Russian regions – the border provinces of Kursk and Bryansk and the nearby regions of Oryol and Tula.
Separately, authorities in the Krasnodar region bordering the Crimean Peninsula, which was annexed by Russia in 2014, reported that a drone attack there started a fire at an oil depot.
Russia agreed to part of a US ceasefire proposal on Tuesday by calling a halt to attacks on Ukrainian energy facilities for 30 days, but said progress towards a peace deal hinged on the West ending its supply of military aid and intelligence to Kyiv.
In a call with Mr Trump, Mr Putin did not join Ukraine in supporting his plan for a month-long truce on land and in the Black Sea, but the White House said “technical negotiations” would start immediately in the Middle East on “a maritime ceasefire ... full ceasefire and permanent peace”. – Agencies
