For a few hours on Sunday, it looked as if one of the most destructive patterns of the war in Ukraine might finally be broken. Then the drones came back. Donald Trump announced on his Truth Social platform that an “energy ceasefire” between Russia and Ukraine was in force “effective immediately,” adding that both parties had agreed and warning them not to break it. By evening, Volodymyr Zelenskyy was reporting strikes on power plants in Kyiv and Kharkiv, and Moscow still had not said a word to confirm that it had signed up to anything.
The gap between the announcement and the reality on the ground has turned what was meant to be a breakthrough into another source of confusion and friction between Washington, Kyiv and Europe. It also lands in the middle of a bruising week for transatlantic relations, coming just two days after the White House unveiled a controversial plan to buy Russian diesel fuel while temporarily easing sanctions.
The US president’s message was short and offered no details: no start time beyond “immediately,” no list of protected facilities, no word on how violations would be monitored. That vagueness mattered almost at once. Zelenskyy said he was surprised by the announcement, describing the deal as “news to me” and saying Kyiv was seeking more information about what had supposedly been agreed.
Within hours, the Ukrainian leader posted that a drone had hit a power plant in the capital, leaving parts of Kyiv without electricity. Soon afterwards he reported a strike on the CHP-5 combined heat and power plant in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, and complained that Ukrainian skies had been “infested” with Russian Shahed drones all day. Ukrainian officials said Russian attacks killed six people across two cities on Sunday. In Kharkiv, three people died and around twenty were injured, two children among them, when a grocery store was hit. Another strike in western Ukraine killed three more.
The violence did not run in one direction only. Officials in Russia’s Belgorod border region said a Ukrainian drone struck a car and killed one person, and Moscow-installed authorities in occupied parts of Donetsk reported another death from a Ukrainian attack. Russia’s defence ministry, for its part, claimed hits on a logistics centre in the Mykolaiv region and a cargo vessel in the Black Sea.
Energy infrastructure has been a central battlefield of this war for years. Russia has repeatedly targeted power stations and the grid, especially as winter approaches, aiming to leave cities cold and dark. Ukraine, in turn, has expanded long-range drone attacks on Russian oil refineries and depots, hitting the revenue stream that funds Moscow’s war machine. A genuine mutual pause on such strikes would therefore be a significant step, both for civilians facing another hard winter and for global fuel markets that have been rattled by the fighting.
Allies Applaud the Idea, but Doubt the Delivery
Despite the muddled rollout, the concept itself drew quick support from Ukraine’s key Western partners. The United Kingdom, France, Canada and the European Commission all signalled backing for an energy truce. British prime minister Andy Burnham said a sustained energy ceasefire was “the best route to get energy and fuel back into world markets.” French president Emmanuel Macron said Paris supported a “real energy ceasefire,” a choice of words that hinted at scepticism about whether the version announced on Sunday was the genuine article.
That support, however, comes wrapped in deep unease about Washington’s wider approach. Two days earlier, Trump had announced an agreement to buy Russian diesel while temporarily loosening US sanctions. Kyiv and its European allies reacted with anger, arguing that the arrangement rewards Moscow and weakens the economic pressure that has been one of the West’s main levers. Canadian prime minister Mark Carney joined the criticism after a call with Zelenskyy on Sunday, saying the diesel deal “is in direct opposition to the efforts of Ukraine, Canada and our allies to create peace and stability in Europe.” European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen publicly backed Zelenskyy, and German foreign minister Johann Wadephul said Berlin continued to “fully support” him.
The tone between Washington and Kyiv has also sharpened. Asked about the backlash to the diesel arrangement, Trump said it was “time for Ukraine to get a new president” who would finally settle the war. Zelenskyy answered calmly but firmly in an interview with ABC News, saying that, with all respect to the US president, it was up to Ukrainian society and its people to choose their leader.
Behind the public exchanges, there are signs of harder pressure. The Financial Times, citing officials in Europe, reported that the Trump administration has threatened to halt the procurement system that supplies Ukraine with weapons unless Kyiv stops its deep strikes on Russian energy facilities. According to that report, US officials have been lobbying both European capitals and Kyiv to bring the refinery attacks to an end.
Seen in that light, the energy ceasefire looks less like a neutral humanitarian gesture and more like part of a broader American push to calm energy markets and steer the war towards a settlement on terms Washington can live with. For Ukraine, the calculation is difficult. Its refinery strikes are one of the few tools that impose real costs inside Russia. Giving them up in exchange for a pause that Moscow has not even acknowledged, and that appeared to be violated on its first day, would be a hard sell at home.
For Russia, staying silent has its own advantages. By neither confirming nor rejecting the truce, the Kremlin keeps its options open, avoids being blamed for a collapse, and can watch the friction between Kyiv and Washington grow. If the ceasefire eventually takes shape, Moscow can present itself as a reasonable partner; if it fails, the confusion surrounding its announcement makes it harder to assign responsibility.
What happens next depends on details that are still missing. A workable energy truce would need clear definitions of which facilities are covered, a start date that both sides accept, and some form of monitoring to separate genuine violations from claims and counterclaims. None of that has been made public so far. Without it, every new strike on a power station or refinery will be read through competing narratives, and the ceasefire risks becoming one more slogan in a war that has already produced many.
For the millions of Ukrainians who spent Sunday evening listening for air raid sirens while the lights flickered, the debate over wording is secondary. What they want is simple: heat, power and a winter without blackouts. Whether Sunday’s announcement brings them any closer to that will become clear only once the drones stay on the ground, and once Moscow says, in its own voice, that it is on board.
