Following a request from President Donald Trump of the United States (US), Russian President Vladimir Putin has agreed to halt strikes on Kyiv for a week amid the freezing temperatures gripping Ukraine’s capital.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed this development in a statement on Friday, January 30.
Kremlin said. “I can say that President Trump did indeed make a personal request to President Putin to refrain from striking Kyiv for a week until February 1 in order to create favourable conditions for negotiations.”
According to Moscow, the suspension, which is set to expire on Sunday, was intended to support diplomatic efforts led by Washington to bring an end to the nearly four-year war between Russia and Ukraine.
President Trump had earlier disclosed that he personally appealed to Putin to halt attacks on Kyiv and nearby areas due to worsening winter conditions and humanitarian concerns.
Trump said he made this appeal during a White House cabinet meeting, saying, “I personally asked President Putin not to fire into Kyiv and the various towns for a week,” adding that it was “because of the cold, extreme cold.”
READ ALSO:
Ukraine has not recorded its usual large-scale missile and drone assaults on the capital this week, a development President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged.
“There were no strikes on energy facilities last night,” Zelensky said in a social media post on Friday, “But yesterday afternoon our energy infrastructure in several regions was hit.”
Zelensky welcomed Trump’s intervention and reiterated Ukraine’s conditional commitment to restraint.
“If Russia does not strike our energy infrastructure –- generation facilities or any other energy assets –- we will not strike theirs,” he told journalists, including AFP.
Despite the reported pause, Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched dozens of drones and a missile overnight, damaging civilian infrastructure in the northern Chernihiv region and a residential building in the southern Zaporizhzhia region.
Ukraine’s weather agency has warned that the most severe cold spell is expected after February 1, with temperatures in Kyiv potentially dropping to minus 30 degrees Celsius.
The Kremlin has not commented on the humanitarian impact of the cold, previously attributing civilian suffering to Kyiv’s actions.
The temporary halt in strikes comes ahead of a second round of peace talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators scheduled to take place in Abu Dhabi.
Territorial disputes are expected to dominate discussions, with Moscow occupying large areas of eastern and southern Ukraine and demanding Kyiv withdraw from parts of the Donetsk region under Ukrainian control — a condition Ukraine has rejected.
“So far, we have been unable to find a compromise on the territorial issue, specifically regarding part of eastern Ukraine,” Zelensky said.
He added: “We have repeatedly said that we are ready for compromises that lead to a real end to the war, but that are in no way related to changes to Ukraine’s territorial integrity.”
Russia has maintained that it will seize the remainder of eastern Ukraine by force if negotiations fail, and on Friday announced the capture of three additional villages in the southern Zaporizhzhia region.
