Barely 24 hours after US President Donald Trump moved to broker a 30-day pause in fighting between Russia and Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russia traded blames today following mutual drone attacks, overnight, targeting both countries’ energy facilities, in clear violation of yesterday’s ceasefire.
Zelensky accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of breaking a promise made during talks with Trump to halt attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure.
Recall that during a call with Trump on Tuesday, March 18, Putin agreed to pause attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure for 30 days as part of a limited ceasefire – but rejected a complete halt to fighting.
“After Putin’s conversation with the US President Donald Trump, where Putin said he was supposedly giving an order stopping strikes against Ukrainian energy infrastructure, there were 150 drones overnight, targeting energy infrastructure, among other things.
“There were strikes against transport. Two hospitals were unfortunately hit. In other words, Putin’s words are very much at odds with reality,” Zelensky said at a news conference in Finland with his Finnish counterpart Alexander Stubb.
Russia accuses Ukraine of targeting oil storage facility
On the other hand, Russia’s Defence Ministry accused Ukraine of attempting to disrupt Russian-US peace talks by targeting an oil storage facility in Krasnodar, a territory in southern Russia.
In a statement reported by the RIA Novosti news agency, the Ministry said Ukraine used three drones against the facility involved in pumping oil via the Caspian pipeline.
“Such actions by the Kyiv regime are a deliberate provocation aimed at disrupting Trump’s peace initiatives,” the Ministry said.
It added that Russian forces had shot down seven of its drones aimed at energy facilities in Ukraine’s Mykolayiv region after receiving Putin’s order to pause attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure.
Putin, Trump understand each other well – Kremlin
Moments after Zelensky’s joint news conference with the Finnish president, Moscow spoke about last night’s attacks during its regular briefing to reporters.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused Ukraine of not respecting the 30-day pause in striking each other’s energy infrastructure.
He said Kyiv had tried to hit Russia’s energy infrastructure overnight.
Peskov said Putin and Trump “trust each other” and want to normalise US-Russia relations after more than three years since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“Presidents Putin and Trump understand each other well, trust each other and are intent to gradually move towards the normalisation of ties,” the Kremlin spokesman added.
Meanwhile, the US said talks on Ukraine will continue on Sunday.
