Friday | 30 January 2026
US President Donald Trump has claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to a temporary, week-long pause in attacks on major Ukrainian cities, including the capital, Kyiv, as Ukraine struggles through severe winter conditions and widespread power shortages.
Trump made the unverified claim during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Thursday, saying he personally appealed to Putin to halt strikes amid what he described as “extreme cold” gripping Ukraine. According to Trump, the Russian leader agreed to refrain from targeting Kyiv and other urban centers for a week, though Trump did not specify when the conversation took place or through what channel it occurred.
“I personally asked President (Vladimir) Putin not to fire into Kyiv and the various towns for a week, and he agreed to do that,” Trump told Cabinet members. The White House did not immediately provide additional details, and Russia has not confirmed the existence of such an agreement.
The claim comes as Russia has intensified attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, a campaign that Ukrainian officials say is designed to cripple the country’s ability to provide electricity and heat during winter. Repeated strikes on power plants and transmission facilities have left millions of Ukrainians facing rolling blackouts, reduced heating, and disruptions to basic services as temperatures drop below freezing.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed Trump’s statement and expressed hope that any pause in attacks, if implemented, could help protect the country’s fragile energy system during the coldest months of the year.
“We value the efforts of our partners to help us protect lives. Thank you, President Trump,” Zelensky said in a post on X. He emphasized that maintaining power supply is essential for civilian survival, calling energy infrastructure “a foundation of life,” and added that Ukraine expects any agreement to be honored in practice.
Zelensky also confirmed that discussions about a temporary halt in attacks on energy infrastructure were held during trilateral meetings involving US, Ukrainian, and Russian officials in Abu Dhabi last week. A person familiar with those talks said American officials raised the idea of a limited pause in fighting to address humanitarian concerns, though it was unclear at the time whether Moscow would accept the proposal.
So far, Russia has not publicly acknowledged agreeing to any such pause. When asked earlier on Thursday about the possibility of an energy-related ceasefire, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to provide details, saying only, “No, I can’t comment on that yet.” CNN has reached out to the Kremlin for further clarification.
Skepticism remains high given the history of failed ceasefires in the nearly three-year war. Previous attempts at temporary truces have repeatedly collapsed amid mutual accusations of violations. In May of last year, Ukraine accused Russia of breaching a planned three-day ceasefire that Moscow said it was observing for “humanitarian considerations.” While Russian state media reported that the ceasefire had taken effect, Ukraine’s military said attacks continued throughout the period. Russia’s Ministry of Defense countered by claiming its forces had “ceased all hostilities” and accused Ukraine of continuing strikes, saying it would “mirror” Kyiv’s actions.
Earlier in the conflict, in March 2022, Ukrainian authorities were forced to suspend evacuation plans from the besieged city of Mariupol after accusing Russian forces of violating an agreed pause intended to allow civilians to flee.
Status of peace talks
In his message thanking Trump, Zelensky suggested that even limited de-escalation measures could help create momentum toward ending the war. “Such steps contribute to real progress toward ending the war,” he wrote.
Trump’s Special Envoy, Steve Witkoff, echoed that optimism on Thursday, saying the administration was “making a lot of progress” in negotiations aimed at a broader peace deal. Referring to the Abu Dhabi talks, Witkoff said he believed Ukrainians were “hopeful and expectant” that a deal could be delivered “sometime soon.”
However, officials on both sides have offered sharply different assessments of how close negotiations are to a breakthrough. On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers that territorial claims over the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk now represent the primary remaining obstacle to ending the war.
“It’s still a gap, but at least we’ve been able to narrow down the issue set to one central one,” Rubio said, acknowledging that resolving the dispute would likely be extremely difficult but insisting that negotiations are ongoing.
The Kremlin pushed back on that characterization. On Thursday, Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov rejected Rubio’s assessment, telling Rossiya-1 television that talks were not nearly as advanced as suggested. Ushakov later said that territorial questions were just one of many unresolved issues still on the table, according to Russian state outlet TASS.
The reported pause in Russian attacks, if it materializes, would come at a critical moment for Ukraine. Ongoing strikes on energy infrastructure have already caused significant electricity shortages in Kyiv, according to Ukraine’s energy minister, with other regions—including Odesa, Kharkiv, and Donetsk—also experiencing outages. As winter deepens, Ukrainian officials warn that continued attacks could worsen humanitarian conditions and place additional strain on an already exhausted population.