Trump announces Russia-Ukraine “energy ceasefire” after calling for Zelenskyy’s replacement

President Trump said Sunday that Ukraine and Russia have agreed to an “energy ceasefire,” shortly after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed to continue striking Russian oil refineries in response to criticism from Mr. Trump.

“Effective immediately, there is an ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine. Both parties have agreed. Do not break it! Thank you for your attention to this matter,” Mr. Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. It’s unclear exactly what the ceasefire entails.

Mr. Trump previously took aim at the Ukrainian president’s leadership, suggesting Zelenskyy should be replaced and blaming him for high diesel prices. The Ukrainian president clapped back, saying Russia alone was responsible for the war in Ukraine. 

“Ukraine will be ready to stop striking Russian oil refineries if Russia stops striking our energy infrastructure,” Zelenskyy wrote on X.

“It is possible to stop strikes on energy infrastructure as early as today, but (Russian President Vladimir) Putin does not want to do so,” he said, adding that any de-escalation must be reciprocal and backed by real guarantees.

The exchange came as Kyiv pressed its campaign against infrastructure deep inside Russia, with a drone attack on Sunday shutting down a data center run by Russian technology giant Yandex, the third strike on the company’s facilities in four days. Russia and Ukraine are locked in a long-range aerial war while their armies remain largely deadlocked on the front line, more than 4 1/2 years since Moscow’s full-scale invasion.

Speaking to ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday morning, Zelenskyy said Ukrainians “want peace.”

“About energy, I said it to President Trump … to his team and to his people several times. We want peace,” Zelenskyy said. “We are ready for ceasefire. We are ready to begin from any kind of steps of de-escalation.”

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha has also pushed back on Mr. Trump’s comments, writing on X late Saturday that Zelenskyy was leading the country through a war for its independence. 

“He has the support of the Ukrainian people, and they have the right to decide. Statements from abroad only confirm that he is doing his job well,” Sybiha wrote.

Mr. Trump said Saturday it was time for Ukraine to get a new president, suggesting Zelenskyy has not done enough to end the war and blaming him for high diesel prices in the U.S.

“I suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal because he could have made many deals and for some reason he never does,” Mr. Trump said.

According to an announcement from Mr. Trump on Friday, the U.S. has made a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to buy more than 300,000 tons of diesel from Russia right away, followed by 500,000 tons in November, and 1 million tons after that. Amid the deal, which attempts to address high fuel prices ahead of the midterm elections, Mr. Trump has also urged Zelenskyy for weeks to stop strikes on Russian energy infrastructure. Zelenskyy criticized the deal and said it would help fund Russia’s war in Ukraine. 

Mr. Trump has sought to blame record U.S. diesel prices on Ukraine rather than the war in Iran, which has driven up world energy prices. Ukrainian and European officials reacted to the diesel deal with dismay, saying it will help pay for Russia’s war effort.

The Ukrainian drone attack on the Yandex data center in the city of Vladimir, east of Moscow, caused outages across the company’s services, leaving users in dozens of Russian cities and in Kazakhstan, Belarus and Armenia unable to order taxis or access banking services, according to Russian independent news outlet Astra.

“As a result of the drone attack, the infrastructure of Yandex’s data center in Vladimir was damaged. Operations at the data center have been completely halted. There were no injuries,” said the Yandex Cloud Telegram channel, which provides operational updates on service availability.

In Moscow, residents described disruption to everyday tasks. Pavel Belyavskiy, a driver for Yandex Taxi, said it was unclear whether orders were coming through at all, and that on several rides he had to cancel after waiting a long time because he could not reach the passenger.

“I’d press the ‘call’ button to contact them, but nothing happens,” he said. “There’s nothing I can do, so I’m just forced to cancel.”

Igor Mann said he went to check the status of an order on the Yandex Market shopping platform but the page was unavailable, and connecting through a VPN did not help. “Nothing worked,” he said.

Another Moscow resident, Eduard Malyavko, said the outages had “direct impact” and weren’t just about “convenience.”

“It’s also about work,” he said, adding that they also affected “healthcare, and everything else.”

On Thursday, a drone attack took a Yandex data center offline in the Ryazan region, southeast of Moscow. A day later, Ukrainian drones hit the company’s major data center in the Kaluga region, southwest of Moscow, partly putting it out of action, Yandex said.

Yandex, often described as Russia’s Google, runs the country’s most popular search engine and a wide range of digital services, and is heavily involved in Russia’s artificial intelligence development.

Elsewhere, Zelenskyy said search and rescue operations ended in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia after a Russian bombing on Saturday.

Zelenskyy said 23 people were killed in the attack, including four children. More than 30 people were wounded, Fedorov said, eight of whom remain hospitalized.

A man was killed and two women wounded in a Ukrainian drone strike on Russia’s Bryansk border region, local officials said Sunday.