President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday that Ukraine was ready to take “de-escalation measures” if Russia did the same, without confirming Donald Trump's assertion that Moscow and kyiv have agreed not to strike any more energy infrastructure.
Mr. Trump, who has led mediation efforts to end the war in Ukraine since his return to power, assured that kyiv “agreed not to attack Russian energy targets” and that Moscow “agreed to do the same,” a day after attacking Ukraine for its attacks on Russian oil refineries.
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“If our American partners manage to obtain from Russia a real desire to end this war which is destroying lives, and to do so sincerely and sustainably, Ukraine will take its own de-escalation measures,” Mr. Zelensky said in his daily address broadcast on social networks. “The United States has presented a strong proposal regarding a mutual cessation of strikes against critical infrastructure. And if this can constitute the first step towards de-escalation (...) then Ukraine is ready to support this de-escalation,” he indicated.
The Kremlin did not immediately react to these assertions. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged for months in a sharp escalation of long-range strikes, targeting a growing number of civilian sites such as factories, warehouses, energy infrastructure, ports and ships in the Black Sea. These attacks, which caused numerous civilian casualties, caused a fuel crisis and dealt a blow to e-commerce giants Wildberries and Ozon in Russia. In Ukraine, they halted a large part of agricultural exports and hit the metallurgy and mass distribution sectors hard.
“Uninterrupted campaign”
Russian strikes are also increasing against the Ukrainian railway network, the boss of the company managing the railways revealed to AFP on Monday, the day after a strike which hit a train near the Polish border. “A virtually non-stop campaign of strikes against the railway network has begun,” warned Oleksandr Pertsovsky, CEO of Ukrzaliznytsia, stressing that the attacks are “intensifying exponentially” and that “every month, every week is usually worse than the last.”
Due to a lack of air connections, which have been stopped since the start of the war in 2022, the train is an essential link in Ukraine, used as much by civilians and foreign diplomats as by soldiers, to move military equipment or cargo of goods. On Sunday, in Ireland, the American president directly called on Volodymyr Zelensky, calling on him to “stop” attacking oil refineries in Russia, in the face of soaring prices at the pump.
“The rise in the price of diesel in the world is mainly caused by the war between Russia and Ukraine, and not by Iran,” he assured, despite the fact that the conflict in the Middle East also results in an increase in prices at the pump. Russia, which is one of the world's main oil exporters, is striking many gas stations in Ukraine.
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Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on Sunday justified the intensification of Russian attacks, accusing kyiv of being at the origin of this escalation. “Russia didn’t hit everything that moved (previously). She only started doing it after the Ukrainians themselves opened Pandora’s box,” he said. American envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner went to Moscow and kyiv two weeks ago to relaunch diplomatic efforts that have been at a standstill since the start of the year.
Mr. Zelensky, who plans to meet Mr. Trump at the end of September in New York, said he expects a resumption of direct talks with Russia this month, after the Russian legislative elections of 18-20. The Kremlin has said it cannot rule out a meeting in October.
