President Volodymyr Zelenskyy agreed to a partial ceasefire on energy targets Wednesday in a call with President Donald Trump. The White House said both countries agreed “this could be the first step toward the full end of the war and ensuring security.”
Zelenskyy said in a post on X that the conversation was “positive, very substantive, and frank,” saying that the two leaders spoke about Ukraine’s presence in the Kursk region of Russia and on the prisoner exchange Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to on Tuesday.
This limited ceasefire, hashed out between Trump and Putin, is a much smaller step than the deal the United States and Ukraine proposed originally. Russia initially balked at that agreement for a 30-day ceasefire, later softening its rhetoric and ultimately agreeing to a pared-down ceasefire on energy infrastructure.
Trump also suggested that the United States could become more involved in Ukrainian energy production, saying the country could “be very helpful in running those plants,” according to a statement by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz.
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“American ownership of those plants would be the best protection for that infrastructure and support for Ukrainian energy infrastructure,” they said.
Trump decried the idea of security guarantees in a now infamous meeting with Zelenskyy in the Oval Office but has since increasingly pushed the idea of American-owned assets and infrastructure in Ukraine as a pathway to offer a more lasting peace.
Ukraine will participate in the upcoming “technical team” meetings in Saudi Arabia in an attempt to extend the ceasefire “to the Black Sea on the way to a full ceasefire.” State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said senior staff will attend those meetings.
Both Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and the State Department have said that the meetings show promise and could lead to a full ceasefire in “weeks.”
“This agreement reflects us being closer to an end to this,” Bruce said. “This is the right trajectory brought to you by President Trump and his Secretary of State Marco Rubio.”
Bruce did not clarify to what extent this ceasefire on energy and infrastructure targets would actually slow the conflict.
In the time between the calls with Trump, both Russia and Ukraine launched attacks on infrastructure assets. Russia claimed that further strikes were stalled by Putin in a call “ten minutes” after finishing his call with Trump.
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John T. Seward is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
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