Trump says he asked Putin not to target Kyiv for 1 week during brutal cold spell

KYIV, Ukraine — U.S. President Donald Trump said Thursday that President Vladimir Putin has agreed not to target the Ukrainian capital and other towns for one week as the region experiences frigid temperatures. There was no immediate confirmation from the Kremlin that Putin has agreed to such a pause.

Russia has been pounding Ukraine's critical infrastructure, hoping to wear down public resistance to the war while leaving many around the country having to endure the dead of winter without heat.

''I personally asked President Putin not to fire on Kyiv and the cities and towns for a week during this ... extraordinary cold,'' Trump said during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, adding that Putin has ''agreed to that."

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was asked earlier Thursday whether a mutual halt on strikes on energy facilities was being discussed between Russia and Ukraine, and he refused to comment on the issue.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy late Wednesday had warned that Moscow was planning another large-scale barrage despite plans for further U.S.-brokered peace talks at the weekend.

Trump said he was pleased that Putin has agreed to the pause. Kyiv, which has grappled with severe power shortages this winter, is forecast to enter a brutally cold stretch starting Friday that is expected to last into next week. Temperatures in some areas will drop to minus 30 degrees Celsius (minus 22 Fahrenheit), the State Emergency Service warned.

''A lot of people said, ‘Don't waste the call. You're not going to get that.''' the Republican U.S. president said of his request of Putin. ''And he did it. And we're very happy that they did it.''

Russia has sought to deny Ukrainian civilians heat and running water over the course of the war, which began with Russia's full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022. Ukrainian officials describe the strategy as ''weaponizing winter.''

Last year was the deadliest for civilians in Ukraine since 2022 as Russia intensified its aerial barrages behind the front line, according to the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in the country.

The war killed 2,514 civilians and injured 12,142 in Ukraine — 31% higher than in 2024, it said.

A Russian drone attack killed three people in Ukraine's southern Zaporizhzhia region overnight and caused a major blaze in an apartment building, officials said Thursday.

Firefighters also worked through the night to put out fires in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, where two people were injured, officials said.

The ongoing attacks discredit the peace talks, Zelenskyy said. ''Every single Russian strike does,'' he said late Wednesday.

Russia's daily bombardment of civilian areas behind the roughly 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line has continued despite international condemnation and attempts to end the fighting.

Ukraine is working with SpaceX to address the reported use of its Starlink satellite service by Russian attack drones, Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said Thursday on the Telegram messaging app.

He said his team contacted the American aerospace company run by Elon Musk and ''proposed ways to resolve the issue.'' Starlink is a global internet network that relies on around 10,000 satellites orbiting Earth.

Fedorov thanked Musk and SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell for their ''swift response and the start of work on resolving the situation.''

Shotwell said a year after the invasion that SpaceX was happy to provide Ukrainians with connectivity ''and help them in their fight for freedom.'' At the same time, the company sought to restrict Ukraine's use of Starlink for military purposes, she said.

Negotiations between the two sides are poised to resume on Sunday amid doubts about Moscow's commitment to a settlement.

The European Union's top diplomat accused Russia of not taking the talks seriously, calling Thursday in Brussels for more pressure to be exerted on Moscow to press it into making concessions.

''We see them increasing their attacks on Ukraine because they can't make moves on the battlefield. So, they are attacking civilians,'' Kaja Kallas said of Russia at a meeting of EU foreign ministers.

She stressed that Europe, which sees its own future security at stake in Ukraine, must be fully involved in talks to end the war. The push for a settlement has been led over the past year by the Trump administration, and European leaders fear their concerns may not be taken into account.

''I think the people of Ukraine are now hopeful and expecting that we are going to deliver a peace deal sometime soon,'' Witkoff added.

The number of soldiers killed, injured or missing on both sides during the war could reach 2 million by spring, with Russia sustaining the largest number of troop deaths for any major power in any conflict since World War II, according to an international think tank report published Tuesday.

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Madhani reported from Washington. Kamila Hrabchuk in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed to this report.

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