US President Donald Trump says Vladimir Putin agreed to a personal request to pause attacks on Ukrainian cities for a week amid an extreme cold snap.
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump claimed that Russia’s Vladimir Putin agreed to a personal request to halt attacks on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities for one week.
Trump cited an “extreme” cold snap that has left millions without heating after Russian strikes on Ukraine’s power infrastructure.
“Because of the cold, extreme cold… I personally asked President Putin not to fire on Kyiv and the cities and towns for a week during this,” Trump told a cabinet meeting.
He described the weather as “record setting cold” and said Putin had agreed to the pause.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked Trump for his “important statement” and said he hoped the United States could “make this happen.”
Zelensky said the pause had been discussed during three-way talks in Abu Dhabi between Russia, Ukraine and the United States last weekend.
A second round of trilateral negotiations in Abu Dhabi is scheduled to begin on Sunday.
The Kremlin did not immediately confirm any truce following Trump’s announcement.
Trump, who met Putin in Alaska last year, said he trusted the Russian leader to honour the agreement.
“People said, ‘don’t waste the call. You’re not going to get that.’ And he did it,” Trump said without specifying when the conversation occurred.
The potential pause comes as Ukraine faces a severe humanitarian crisis with temperatures forecast to plunge as low as minus 30C.
Russian attacks killed six people in central and southern Ukraine on Thursday, according to regional authorities.
Trump’s roaming envoy Steve Witkoff, who attended the Abu Dhabi talks, said there were “lots of good things happening” in the negotiations.
Witkoff said parties were “discussing the land deal” and that a deal for US security guarantees for Ukraine was “largely finished.”
Trump told the cabinet meeting there had been “a lot of progress” in the talks to end the nearly four-year-old invasion.
