Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy ready for ‘energy ceasefire’, as Nato warns Putin becoming ‘increasingly cavalier’
Meeting on sidelines of UN general assembly, Ukrainian leader says Kyiv open to deal not to attack energy targets if Russia agrees. What we know on day 1,673
Volodymyr Zelenskyy discussed with Donald Trump on Tuesday efforts to end the 4-year-old war with Russia, including a potential bilateral ceasefire on energy-related targets. “We are ready for any kind of format of energy ceasefire” if Russia agrees to “not attack our energy system,” Zelenskyy told journalists after meeting with Trump at the UN headquarters in New York. The Ukrainian leader expressed hope the “American side will find a way … to bring them to any kind of negotiations.” Zelenskyy said that he also was ready to meet the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, at a trilateral meeting with Trump.
Trump insisted he was working with both sides to end the war, despite little evidence of Putin being open to any settlement. “It’s going to happen, I think, more quickly than people understand,” Trump said in his UN speech. Efforts led by Washington to broker a deal to end the hostilities, which have raged since Russia launched its all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, have stalled in recent months as the US has shifted focus to its war against Iran.
Zelenskyy claimed the war with Russia would end if Trump applied more pressure on Putin, and if China and India stop buying oil from Russia. “It’s enough to stop them, they will not have enough money,” Zelenskyy told The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday. Zelenskyy said Russia’s energy sales to China, India and Turkey were propping up Russia’s economy. During the same interview, Zelenskyy said that Trump on Tuesday did not ask him to stop bombing Russian oil refineries. However, he acknowledged the issue has been raised before by American partners over concerns of rising energy prices.
Zelenskyy also met with the UK prime minister, Andy Burnham, in New York, who said he lobbied Trump to press for a Ukraine-Russia energy ceasefire in his meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart. Burnham promised further financial support to Kyiv for infrastructure.
Putin is becoming “increasingly cavalier, dangerous and risk accepting,” as his war in Ukraine drags on and as he seeks to divide western allies, Nato’s deputy commander in Europe said Tuesday. Air Chief Marshal Sir John Stringer spoke to The Associated Press at a security conference in Estonia amid warnings from some European leaders that Moscow is planning to test Nato’s collective defence pact with bolder attacks that have already included sabotage and espionage. Stringer warned that Nato members need to be aware of the “febrile environment” and be careful in their response because Putin would like to provoke the alliance into an “overreaction”.
Officials in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which border Russia, have been more cautious about the prospect of a serious escalation. “Ukraine is fighting. Russia is absorbed in Ukraine. We do not observe any buildup near our borders. And from that part, I think that most would agree that the perspective of direct military attack is not correct,” Latvian president Edgars Rinkevics told reporters on the sidelines of the UN meeting. European countries have already faced multiple incursions of Russian drones – and several missiles – as well as a campaign of covert Russian disruption which began after the war.
Ukraine has continued to press the US for more Patriot interceptors to defend against Russia’s ballistic missiles, but is yet to get any confirmation, Zelenskyy told reporters. “They are positive to help us, but I didn’t get the very concrete answer,” he said. Defence experts say the US has been experiencing a global shortage of Patriot interceptors because many have been expended to defend against Iranian attacks on US and allied bases in Middle East. Zelenskyy spoke of the urgency of needing the weapons, which can shoot down Russia’s more advanced ballistic missiles. The shortage in Ukraine has left Kyiv and other cities increasingly exposed to devastating attacks.
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