Kremlin says Russian moratorium on Ukrainian energy attacks remains in place despite continued strikes
The Kremlin is claiming that a suspension on strikes against Ukrainian energy infrastructure, agreed in the Putin-Trump phone call last Tuesday, remains in place.
Last week, Vladimir Putin agreed to Donald Trump’s proposal for a 30-day halt on attacks to energy infrastructure. The ceasefire, however, was cast into doubt soon after, with both sides reporting continued strikes.
“So far, there have been no other orders from the president,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said when asked if Russia intended to maintain its moratorium or not.
Speaking to journalists at a daily briefing, he added:
Our armed forces are following all instructions of the supreme commander-in-chief, but of course we are monitoring the situation very closely.
Our American interlocutors are also able to monitor the situation and draw the appropriate conclusions.
Russia has been relentlessly targeting Ukraine’s infrastructure since it launched its full scale invasion in February 2022, while in recent months Ukraine has been increasingly able to hit targets deep inside Russia with long-range drones.
Kyiv, which accused Russia of flouting its moratorium almost immediately, said it would need to sign a formal document to suspend its own attacks, something which has not happened.
Key events
Kremlin says Russia and US have common understanding on need for settlement in Ukraine
We have some information trickling in from what is being discussed in the talks between US and Russian officials at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Reuters is reporting that the Kremlin said that Moscow and Washington shared a common understanding on the need to move towards a settlement to end the war in Ukraine, but that there are still many different aspects that need to be worked out.
A fast US brokered ceasefire in Ukraine is unlikely for many reasons. Vladimir Putin has said any talks must address what he frames as “the root causes” of Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022, primarily his concerns around an expanding Nato alliance. Ukraine has made membership of the alliance a key strategic aim that it says would help protect the country in the event of future Russian aggression.
Putin also said during his call with Donald Trump earlier this month that any long-term deal would require an ending of intelligence sharing and military aid to Kyiv from its allies. Volodymyr Zelenskyy said after the call that Ukraine’s allies would never agree to such a move, adding that he hopes supplies will continue.
Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces (SSO) say they have destroyed four Russian military helicopters in Russian border region of Belgorod using US-made Himars missiles with cluster munitions.
The SSO said, in a post on X, that two Ka-52 strike helicopters and two Mi-8 transport helicopters were concealed in a “hidden position” used for “rapid redeployment or attacks against Ukraine”.
The Belgorod region has often been targeted by Ukrainian forces since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion three years ago/
Why does Russia want to restore the Black Sea Grain Initiative?
Moscow is interested in restoring a deal that allowed Ukraine to export grain from its ports without being attacked, according to reports.
If the deal is revived, Russia would export farm produce and fertiliser through the Black Sea, getting relief from sanctions imposed by western countries.
Russia pulled out of the Turkish-brokered Black Sea grain deal in July 2023, accusing the west of failing to uphold its commitments to ease sanctions on Russia’s own exports of agricultural products and fertilisers.
It meant Moscow stopped granting safe passage to cargo ships going to and from Ukraine, and the country’s grain exports subsequently slumped. You can read more about the deal and its economic significance in this explainer.
Ukraine’s air force said it shot down 57 out of 99 drones launched by Russia overnight in the south, north, west and central regions of the country. Another 36 imitator drones did not reach their targets, it added in a post on Telegram.
The air force did not say what happened to the remaining six drones, but said the Kyiv, Kharkiv, Sumy, Kirovohrad and Zaporizhia regions were affected by the Russian attack.
As we mentioned in an earlier post, US and Russian negotiators have sat down for talks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on a partial ceasefire in Ukraine.
The meeting is expected to be followed by another round of talks between US and Ukrainian teams (after officials from Washington and Kyiv met yesterday).
The separate meetings are set to discuss details of a pause in long-range attacks against energy facilities and civilian infrastructure and a halt on attacks in the Black Sea to ensure safe commercial shipping.
Russian President Vladimir Putin last week agreed to halt strikes on Ukraine energy targets for 30 days, after a lengthy phone call with US President Donald Trump.
But there is ongoing confusion about what constitutes energy infrastructure, with Kyiv pushing for railways and ports to be protected under the definition, which the Kremlin has framed narrowly.
Any deal in Riyadh comes after developments last week when Vladimir Putin agreed to Donald Trump’s proposal for a 30-day halt on attacks to energy infrastructure. The ceasefire, however, was cast into doubt soon after, with both sides reporting continued strikes.
Talks aim for Black Sea deal
In the talks, Washington has been eyeing a Black Sea ceasefire deal, a major aim of Russia, before securing a wider agreement.
As Reuters reports, the negotiations, which followed US talks with Ukraine on Sunday, come as Donald Trump intensifies his drive to end the three-year-old conflict after he last week spoke to both Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Vladimir Putin.
A source briefed on the planning for the talks told Reuters that the US side was being led by Andrew Peek, a senior director at the White House National Security Council, and Michael Anton, a senior State Department official.
The White House says the aim of the talks is to reach a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea, allowing the free flow of shipping.
Russia will be represented by Grigory Karasin, a former diplomat who is now chair of the Federation Council’s Foreign Affairs Committee, and Sergei Beseda, an adviser to the director of the Federal Security Service.
Talks begin, says Russian news agency
The Russian-US talks in Saudi Arabia have started, according to Tass, the Russian state news agency. You can read our curtain raiser on the negotiations, and the gap between expectations on the two sides, here:
Opening summary
Welcome to our live coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war – here’s a snapshot of the latest.
Talks between the US and Russia are to be held in Saudi Arabia on Monday as Washington signalled its hope for “real progress” on a ceasefire in the Ukraine war while Moscow warned that “difficult negotiations” were ahead.
The start of the latest round of negotiations comes a day after Ukrainian and US delegations held “constructive and meaningful” talks in the kingdom with a focus on protecting energy facilities and critical infrastructure, Ukrainian defence minister Rustem Umerov said.
US special envoy Steve Witkoff expressed optimism about the chances of ending the war, telling Fox News on Sunday: “I think that you’re going to see in Saudi Arabia on Monday some real progress, particularly as it affects a Black Sea ceasefire on ships between both countries. And from that, you’ll naturally gravitate into a full-on shooting ceasefire.”
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country’s delegation to Sunday’s talks was working in “a completely constructive manner” and “the conversation is quite useful”.
“But no matter what we say to our partners today, we need to get Putin to give a real order to stop the strikes,” the Ukrainian president said in a televised statement.
The Kremlin poured cold water on hopes for a rapid resolution of the war, with Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov telling Russian state TV on Sunday: “We are only at the beginning of this path.”
The US is pushing for a broad ceasefire by 20 April, Bloomberg has reported, while sources said the timeline might slip given the wide gap between Kyiv and Moscow’s positions.
In other news:
-
Witkoff dismissed Keir Starmer’s attempts to rally peacekeepers in Ukraine as “a posture and a pose”. He said the idea was based on a “simplistic” notion of the UK prime minister and other European leaders thinking: “We have all got to be like Winston Churchill.” Witkoff also played down concerns among Washington’s European Nato allies that Putin might be emboldened by any peace deal in Ukraine to invade other neighbours, saying: “I just don’t see that he wants to take all of Europe. This is a much different situation than it was in world war two.”
-
White House national security adviser Mike Waltz said the US was talking through a range of confidence-building measures in the talks on the war, including on the future of Ukrainian children taken into Russia. Asked about the goals for the broader negotiations, Waltz said that after a Black Sea ceasefire was agreed, “we’ll talk the line of control, which is the actual front lines. And that gets into the details of verification mechanisms, peacekeeping, freezing the lines where they are. And then, of course, the broader and permanent peace.”
-
At least seven people were killed in a barrage of strikes from more than 140 drones across Ukraine on Sunday, according to local officials and emergency services. Explosions were heard in the early hours of the night across the capital, Kyiv, as the air raid continued for more than five hours. Russian drones and debris from downed drones, which were flying at lower altitudes to evade air defences, fell on residential buildings across Kyiv, with at least one child among those killed. The Russian barrage also struck the Kharkiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, Odesa and Donetsk regions, according to officials.
-
The online systems of Ukraine’s state-owned railway Ukrzaliznytsia were subjected to a large-scale, targeted cyber-attack, it said. Restoration of the online systems was ongoing, the company said on Telegram, but train traffic had been stable and running without delays.
-
Ukraine’s air force said on Monday it shot down 57 drones out of 99 launched by Russia overnight. Another 36 imitator drones did not reach their targets, it said, while not specifying what happened to the remaining six drones.
-
Russian authorities said on Sunday their air defences destroyed 59 Ukrainian drones targeting the country’s south-western regions, adding that the strikes had killed one person in Rostov.
-
Russian troops reportedly seized the small village of Sribne in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, while Ukraine’s army said its troops had recaptured a small village called Nadia in the eastern Luhansk region.
