KYIV: President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday Ukraine would support a US proposal to stop its attacks on Russian energy infrastructure, but warned that Russia was trying to delay the US-led negotiations and weaken Kyiv by making new demands.
\nThe White House said earlier that Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed to US President Donald Trump\u2019s proposal for a month-long halt on strikes against Ukrainian energy infrastructure, as the two leaders spoke by phone on Tuesday.
\n\u201cOur side (would) support this,\u201d Zelensky told reporters during a quickly-organized online briefing, when asked about the idea of a moratorium on energy strikes.
\nUkraine has used long-range combat drones to pound Russian oil infrastructure such as refineries in an effort to hurt its much larger foe, which has rained down missiles and drones far behind the front lines in Ukraine since the February 2022 full-scale invasion.
\nIn particular, Russian strikes have hammered Ukrainian power stations, causing large-scale blackouts, and more recently also natural gas production sites.
\nZelensky said he would back any proposal that led to a \u201cstable and just peace.\u201d
\nMoscow stopped short of giving Washington the full unconditional 30-day ceasefire it had sought.
\nZelensky said he believed Russia was clearly opposed to the proposal, which Kyiv agreed to in principle at last week\u2019s talks with US officials in Jeddah.
\nZelensky told reporters that Russia had launched more than 1,300 guided bombs, eight missiles and nearly 600 long-range strike drones at Ukraine since the talks in Saudi Arabia.
\nUkraine itself proposed the idea of ceasefire on energy infrastructure during the talks, he added.
\n\u201cThis was part of our proposal for the sky and for the sea. With the mediation of the American side, if they are the guarantors of control over the implementation of this ceasefire,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
PHONE CALL DIPLOMACY
\nZelensky said after the Putin-Trump phone call he spoke by telephone with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, both key European allies.
\n\u201cI think it will be right that we will have a conversation with President Trump and we will know in detail what the Russians offered the Americans or what the Americans offered the Russians,\u201d he said.
\nHe also told reporters that he hoped Kyiv\u2019s partners would not cut vital military assistance for Ukraine.
\n\u201cWe are in constant communication. I am confident that there will be no betrayal from our partners and that the assistance will continue,\u201d he said.
\nHe made the remark when asked about an earlier comment by Putin, who emphasized that any resolution of the conflict would require an end to all military and intelligence assistance to Ukraine.
\nZelensky said the demand by Putin, as well as another seeking to curtail Ukraine\u2019s campaign to draft civilians into the armed forces, looked aimed at weakening Ukraine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KYIV: President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday Ukraine would support a US proposal to stop its attacks on Russian energy infrastructure, but warned that Russia was trying to delay the US-led negotiations and weaken Kyiv by making new demands. The White House said earlier that Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed to US President Donald …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":78610,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78600"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78612,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78600\/revisions\/78612"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}