On Sunday, Donald Trump put forward an unscheduled declaration of an energy ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, describing it as taking effect immediately, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy indicated he had yet to receive the specifics of any such arrangement. No public statement from Moscow followed the ceasefire announcement, which arrived after Trump had pressed Ukraine over several days to halt attacks on Russian oil refineries.

Trump had urged Zelenskiy on Saturday to stop attacks on Russian oil refineries and to submit his continued leadership to a public referendum. Trump also put forward the view, at a briefing, that Zelenskiy had allowed a number of openings to reach a negotiated agreement with Moscow to pass without result.

On his Truth Social platform that Sunday, Trump posted a declaration that an energy ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine had taken effect immediately, offering no additional detail beyond the announcement itself. In a written post, Trump urged that the arrangement be left intact.

An energy ceasefire in Ukraine had been put forward by Trump around mid-September, though neither of the warring parties went on record to confirm any such arrangement had been made. According to a person briefed on the matter, Washington placed before Kyiv the prospect of suspending both intelligence-sharing arrangements and arms procurement channelled through the Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List (PURL), doing so as part of pressure to bring Ukrainian drone and missile attacks on Russian energy infrastructure to a halt. Those reported threats were first disclosed by a broadcaster whose journalistic standing had been established.

According to the same source, Zelenskiy had been in contact with European leaders, with those conversations focused on finding a path toward reducing tensions with Trump. No reply from the White House had arrived by the time a request for comment was filed.

Zelenskiy reported holding consultations with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, and Finnish President Alexander Stubb on the ceasefire proposal put forward by Trump, adding that while Ukraine backed the halt in fighting, equivalent backing from Moscow would be necessary for it to take hold. Details from the American side had not yet come through, according to a statement posted to Telegram.

Zelenskiy's nightly address reported that Russian forces had continued targeting energy infrastructure with air attacks, among them a strike on a combined heating and power facility in Kharkiv, the country's second-largest city. A Ukrainian official's statement placed the timing of that strike after Trump's ceasefire announcement.

Zelenskiy maintained his established position, telling US officials that halting Ukrainian strikes against Russian oil-refining facilities remained contingent on Putin first suspending aerial bombardment of Ukraine's power grid. In response to Trump's separate call for elections in Ukraine — a process suspended since Russia's 2022 invasion — Zelenskiy set out a precondition of his own, stating that a 60-day ceasefire by Putin would need to be in place before any vote could be organised.

Zelenskiy maintained that the decision over who leads Ukraine belongs to Ukrainians themselves, while stating that a halt to hostilities would need to come before any such process could take place. Ukrainian law bars the holding of elections while martial law remains in force, and Zelenskiy put a concrete proposal to Putin: a full ceasefire lasting 60 days, during which elections could be organised.

The Ukrainian leader attributed upward pressure on energy prices primarily to the conflict in the Middle East, describing it as a factor that observers around the world had come to view as the weightier one, and did not attribute responsibility for price increases to Ukraine's own actions. On Saturday, Zelenskiy contended that a diesel supply arrangement between Trump and Russia would provide Moscow with additional capacity to sustain its military operations against Ukraine, raising the prospect of further casualties.

According to Trump's Friday account of the agreement, Russia stood ready to release more than 300,000 metric tons of diesel — the equivalent of roughly 2.25 million barrels — onto both domestic American and wider international fuel markets without delay. Roughly 1.5 million barrels of diesel leave Russia each day bound for overseas markets.

A number of US legislators raised objections to the diesel agreement. North Carolina Republican Senator Thom Tillis raised concerns that the diesel supply arrangement with Russia could contravene federal law and pose a threat to the safety of American military personnel.

Sabina, a 40-year-old primary school teacher in Kyiv, was among residents who voiced opposition to Trump's proposal that Ukraine seek a leadership change in order to reach an agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Sabina described the remarks as a betrayal by allied partners and noted that wartime conditions preclude holding elections, leaving no legitimate basis for outside parties to dictate the country's political direction.

Six fatalities were recorded on Sunday — three of them outside a grocery store in Kharkiv, three more in the western city of Ivano-Frankivsk — in attacks that Ukrainian officials attributed to Russian forces. Moldovan authorities reported that unmanned aerial vehicles, identified by officials as of Russian origin, crossed into the country's territory and came down at a distance of roughly 35 kilometres from Chisinau, the national capital, which sits along Ukraine's western frontier.