Limited ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine - 30-day pause on attacks on energy infrastructure!
US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin agreed during their phone call on Tuesday to seek a limited ceasefire against energy and infrastructure targets in Russia's war in Ukraine, according to the White House and the Kremlin.
Both sides released written statements immediately after the lengthy phone call, with the White House describing it as the first step in a "movement toward peace" that it hopes will eventually include a naval ceasefire in the Black Sea and a complete and lasting end to the fighting.
The White House said negotiations would "begin immediately" on those steps. It was not immediately clear whether Ukraine is on board with the phased ceasefire plan. U.S. Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt shared the reading in a post on X.
Putin also called on Trump to end foreign military and intelligence assistance to Ukraine, as the US aims to end the Russian occupation of Ukraine, according to the Kremlin.
The Kremlin statement included a long list of conditions and demands from Putin's side, including Moscow's "key condition" to "completely halt" foreign military aid and intelligence sharing to Ukraine, in a demand it claims is to prevent further escalation of the conflict, which has entered its fourth year.
Trump and Putin's phone call lasted more than an hour, with a White House source saying during the call that the conversation was "going well."
The US president said earlier on Monday that "many elements of a final deal have been agreed upon, but much remains" to be agreed upon with Putin during their conversation.
Earlier on Monday, the US president said Washington and Moscow had discussed land, power plants and the "sharing of certain assets" between Russia and Ukraine as part of a deal.
US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Karoline Leavitt suggested that US and Russian officials have discussed the fate of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, which was captured by Russian forces in the early weeks of the war.
"There's a power plant that's on the border of Russia and Ukraine that was up for discussion with the Ukrainians and he'll address that in his call with Putin tomorrow," Leavitt said Monday.
The power plant has been caught in the crossfire since Moscow invaded and occupied the facility shortly afterwards, sparking alarm from international bodies that fighting around Europe's largest nuclear power plant could lead to a potential nuclear disaster.
In his nightly speech, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Putin of deliberately prolonging the war. "The implementation of this proposal could have started a long time ago. Every day in wartime is a matter of human life," Zelenskyy said.
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