Kremlin confirms Trump personally asked Putin to halt attacks on Kyiv until 1 February
Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov has confirmed that US President Donald Trump personally asked Vladimir Putin to refrain from striking Kyiv until 1 February.
Source: Kremlin-aligned Russian news agencies TASS, RIA Novosti and Interfax
Quote: "Indeed, President Trump made a personal request to President Putin to refrain from striking Kyiv for a week, until 1 February, in order to create favourable conditions for negotiations." [N.B. Ukrainska Pravda does not recognise Putin as president – ed.]
Details: The Kremlin did not specify exactly when Trump asked Putin to stop striking Kyiv.
Asked whether the Kremlin has agreed to the proposal to stop strikes on Ukraine, Peskov replied: "Yes, of course, there was a personal request from President Trump."
He declined to specify whether this concerned all strikes or only those on energy infrastructure. "I have nothing to add to what has already been said. I want to emphasise once again that this is about creating favourable conditions for negotiations," the spokesman said.
According to RIA Novosti, Peskov's comment implies that Russia has agreed to refrain from strikes on Ukraine until 1 February at the request of the US president.
Prior to this, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had emphasised that there are no direct agreements between Kyiv and Moscow on a pause in Russian strikes on Ukrainian energy facilities, but discussions on this issue are ongoing, including in Abu Dhabi. He also stressed that Ukraine will respond to Russian attacks in kind.
Background:
- Trump said he personally asked Putin to stop attacks on Ukraine for a week due to the freezing cold weather.
- On Thursday 29 January, Russian pro-war social media accounts began posting about an alleged order to stop attacking Ukrainian infrastructure, which was received on 28 January.
- Zelenskyy, in turn, confirmed that the Ukrainian negotiating team had discussed the issue of a halt in attacks on energy infrastructure in Abu Dhabi.
- A large-scale Russian attack on 24 January and damage to critical infrastructure left 6,000 residential buildings in Kyiv (half of the city's housing stock) without heating.
- As of 30 January, 378 high-rise buildings in the capital remain without heating after the Russian attack on the night of 23-24 January.
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