By Olena Harmash and Tom Balmforth
KYIV (Reuters) -Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that Russian leader Vladimir Putin had effectively rejected a U.S. proposal for a full ceasefire on Tuesday, and urged the world to block any attempts by Moscow to drag out its war against Ukraine.
Putin agreed to temporarily stop attacking Ukrainian energy facilities but declined to endorse a full 30-day ceasefire, coming well short of what U.S. President Donald Trump sought as the first step toward a permanent peace deal.
Zelenskiy, who had agreed to the 30-day ceasefire, said after a call on Tuesday between Putin and Trump that he would support the limited ceasefire proposal put forward by Putin.
“Our side (would) support this,” Zelenskiy told reporters during a quickly-organised online briefing, when asked about the idea of a moratorium on energy strikes.
But after Moscow launched more than 40 drones on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure a few hours later, Zelenskiy called on the world to stop Putin.
“Today, Putin de facto rejected the proposal for a complete ceasefire,” Zelenskiy said in a post on the Telegram. “It would be right for the world to reject in response any attempts by Putin to drag out the war.”
The White House said the telephone hook-up between Trump and Putin was aimed at advancing immediately toward a broader peace plan and another round of talks in Saudi Arabia will begin immediately.
RUSSIA ATTACKS AFTER TRUMP-PUTIN TALK
Late on Tuesday, Russia’s drone attack hit a hospital in Sumy and Moscow carried out strikes at several other Ukrainian regions, including the Kyiv region that surrounds the Ukrainian capital, Zelenskiy and his officials said.
“Russia is attacking civilian infrastructure and people – right now,” Andriy Yermak, Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, said on Telegram.
There was no immediate comment from Russia about the attacks a few short few hours after the Putin-Trump call. Both Ukraine and Russia have said their strikes aim at destroying each other’s infrastructure key to war efforts.
Zelenskiy told reporters that Russia had launched more than 1,300 guided bombs, eight missiles and nearly 600 long-range strike drones at Ukraine since the first round of talks in Saudi Arabia earlier in March.
He said that Ukraine had proposed the idea of ceasefire on energy infrastructure during those talks.
“This was part of our proposal for the sky and for the sea. With the mediation of the American side, if they are the guarantors of control over the implementation of this ceasefire,” Zelenskiy said.
Ukraine has used long-range combat drones to pound Russian oil infrastructure such as refineries in an effort to hurt its much larger foe, which has rained down missiles and drones far behind the front lines in Ukraine since the February 2022 full-scale invasion.
In particular, Russian strikes have hammered Ukrainian power stations, causing large-scale blackouts, and more recently also natural gas production sites.
PHONE CALL DIPLOMACY
After the Putin-Trump call Zelenskiy had calls with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, both key European allies and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
“We are in constant communication. I am confident that there will be no betrayal from our partners and that the assistance will continue,” Zelenskiy said after his calls with Macron and Scholz and when asked about an earlier comment by Putin, who emphasised that any resolution of the conflict would require an end to all military and intelligence assistance to Ukraine.
Zelenskiy said the demand by Putin, as well as another seeking to curtail Ukraine’s campaign to draft civilians into the armed forces, looked aimed at weakening Ukraine.
(Additional reporting by Oleksandr Kozhukhar, Ron Popeski and Lidia Kelly; Writing by Tom Balmforth and Lidia Kelly; Editing by Leslie Adler, Rod Nickel and Michael Perry)
