On Sunday, Trump declared that a ceasefire covering energy infrastructure was in place between Russia and Ukraine — a characterisation he offered without supporting evidence — while Ukrainian officials reported that strikes on energy facilities had continued in the hours following his statement. Trump's announcement, carried in a brief post on social media, stated that the ceasefire had entered into force at once and included a terse directive against any violation of its terms; no response from Moscow was forthcoming at that point.
Zelenskyy described Trump's announcement as welcome news for all parties, while noting that Russian drone and glide-bomb attacks on energy infrastructure in Kyiv and Kharkiv had continued throughout that same day. The drones — referred to in his evening address as "shaheds" — had been active in Ukrainian skies from morning onward. The presidential office confirmed that a power plant in Kharkiv had been struck that evening, with the incident occurring after Trump published the ceasefire post.
Zelenskyy indicated that Ukraine stood prepared to hold back strikes on Russian energy infrastructure and called on Russia to adopt the same restraint. Russian forces have targeted Ukrainian power, heating, and water systems throughout the conflict in an attempt to erode civilian endurance. Kyiv's position, as relayed by Ukrainian officials, frames the cold-weather months as a deliberate instrument of military pressure.
Zelenskyy pointed to a series of de-escalation proposals put forward by Ukraine, each of which Putin chose not to accept, though Zelenskyy indicated he holds out hope that the United States, Ukraine, and the wider international community will eventually receive a different answer. He noted that lines of communication with Washington remain open and expressed appreciation for the backing shown by the American public. In a post on X, he disclosed that conversations about the development had taken place with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte.
In a television interview aired that Sunday, Zelenskyy put forward a conditional proposal: Kyiv would halt its strikes on Russian oil refineries provided Moscow stopped targeting Ukraine's power infrastructure. He called on Trump to relay that position to the Kremlin, stating that a direct signal from the US president urging restraint on energy facilities was what his government was seeking.
A post to social media on Sept. 14 had carried Trump's assertion that the two countries had reached an understanding to leave each other's energy infrastructure untouched, though no supporting details accompanied the statement. Zelenskyy had indicated Ukraine's readiness to comply on the condition that Russia did likewise, yet the proposal ultimately produced no outcome.
On Saturday, Trump called for new Ukrainian leadership, arguing that Zelenskyy had not done enough to bring the conflict to an end and attributing elevated diesel prices in the United States to him. Zelenskyy, responding to those remarks, said Ukraine would be in a position to hold elections if Russia agreed to a 60-day ceasefire, putting forward a two-month pause as the condition. He proposed a full ceasefire lasting 60 days, followed by elections, and noted that Ukraine stood prepared to honour whatever outcome its people delivered, adding that the decision over leadership belonged to Ukrainian society rather than to any outside figure, however esteemed.
Zelenskyy stated that conducting a vote while the conflict continues would run contrary to the law and that security guarantees would first need to be in place to protect the integrity of any such process. Martial law has governed Ukraine since a full-scale military offensive began in February 2022, and the country's constitution prohibits holding elections for as long as that emergency status remains active.
Beyond the legal hurdles, analysts and election officials have pointed to the threat of Russian interference in any nationwide vote, while the logistics of organising one remain far from settled. Roughly a fifth of Ukrainian territory is held by Russian forces, large numbers of citizens are living abroad as displaced persons, and troops on active duty are posted along the front lines. Under Ukraine's constitution, a president whose term has lapsed retains the office until a successor takes the oath of power — a provision that applied to Zelenskyy when his mandate ran out in May 2024.
That development unfolded alongside a drone strike on Sunday that knocked out a data centre in Vladimir, a city located east of Moscow, operated by the technology company Yandex. Across a span of four days, the company's facilities came under attack on three separate occasions. Aerial bombardment has formed a parallel front in the conflict, with both sides exchanging long-range strikes even as ground forces on either side have been unable to break the territorial stalemate.
Over several weeks, Trump had been pressing Zelenskyy to halt attacks on Russian energy infrastructure, a period during which Trump also reached an agreement on Friday to purchase diesel from Moscow as part of an effort to ease fuel prices before the U.S. midterm elections. Trump has publicly attributed record diesel prices in the United States to the conflict in Ukraine rather than to the separate conflict in Iran, which analysts have linked to rising global energy costs. Officials from Ukraine and Europe expressed concern over the diesel agreement, arguing that proceeds from it would flow toward funding Russia's military campaign.
A drone strike attributed to Ukraine hit a Yandex data centre in the city of Vladimir, knocking out services across the company's platforms and leaving residents in dozens of Russian cities, along with users in Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Armenia, unable to hail taxis or reach their banking apps, an independent Russian news outlet reported, adding that all operations at the facility had been brought to a halt. According to posts on the Yandex Cloud Telegram channel, nobody sustained injuries in the incident.
Pavel Belyavskiy, a Yandex Taxi driver, reported uncertainty about whether ride requests were reaching him at all, noting that he had waited extended periods before cancelling several bookings when passengers remained unreachable — the call function in the app appeared to produce no response when activated, leaving him no option but to abandon those trips. Separately, Igor Mann found the Yandex Market order-tracking page inaccessible, and routing his connection through a virtual private network made no difference to the outcome.
Eduard Malyavko, a Moscow resident, told reporters that the power cuts had reached beyond mere inconvenience into healthcare and other essential services. A separate drone strike on Thursday took a Yandex data centre in the Ryazan region, southeast of Moscow, offline. Yandex reported that drone strikes carried out by Ukrainian forces the following day knocked out portions of the company's data centre in the Kaluga region, an area lying to the southwest of Moscow. Yandex operates the most widely used search engine in Russia, maintains a broad portfolio of digital products, and holds a prominent position in the country's artificial intelligence sector.
Rescue efforts in Zaporizhzhia, a city in Ukraine's south, were called off on Saturday following an aerial attack attributed to Russian forces, Ivan Fedorov — who previously led the region and now co-chairs its defense council — confirmed. Zelenskyy reported a toll of 23 lives, among them four children, in the wake of the attack. Of the injured, eight remained under hospital care, according to Fedorov, with the overall toll of wounded surpassing thirty.
A fatality and two non-fatal injuries were reported in Russia's Bryansk border region on Sunday following a drone strike that local authorities attributed to Ukraine.
