Trump claims energy ceasefire reached between Russia and Ukraine

President Trump claimed Sunday an energy ceasefire deal has been reached between Russia and Ukraine, days after his administration announced a deal to acquire diesel from Russia while lifting sanctions.

“Effective immediately, there is an ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Sunday morning. “Both parties have agreed. Do not break it!”

The president previously announced an energy ceasefire between both countries in mid-September. He wrote on Truth Social at the time that both countries agreed to not hit the other country’s energy infrastructure. Trump said the spike in diesel prices was due to the Russia-Ukraine war, not the U.S.-Israeli conflict in Iran.

Trump announced this latest energy ceasefire deal after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in an interview with ABC News’s “This Week,” called for an energy ceasefire from both sides.

“It’s fair deal. It’s not the best deal,” Zelesnky said. “The best deal not –– not to have a war to stop Putin. But the first step is ceasefire, energy ceasefire. OK, if they want energy ceasefire, we are open for this. Don’t attack us. Don’t kill our children. We will stop attack your diesel. And I think it’s fair, fair deal.”

Zelensky told Axios after Trump’s Sunday announcement that the energy ceasefire “was news for me. But if Russians agree to an energy ceasefire, Ukraine will agree.”

Zelensky later said he spoke with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Finnish President Alexander Stubb and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte about Trump’s energy ceasefire announcement.

“Ukraine supports the ceasefire, and it is important that Russia support it as well,” the Ukrainian president wrote on social media Sunday. “We are awaiting details from the American side. For our part, Ukraine always FULLY supports steps toward de-escalation, the protection of lives, and the decisions needed to end the war and guarantee lasting peace.”

An hour before Trump made his Friday announcement lifting sanctions on Russia, Zelensky said his negotiators were meeting with special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in Florida when Ukrainian negotiators said the president planned to speak with Putin, Axios reported .

“It’s not honest, really, because we tried to build our relations in the best way,” Zelensky told the outlet. “It looks like that they used this opportunity to meet us from one side, and from the other side called Putin and negotiate this.”

Ukrainian strikes have hit Russia’s oil refineries in response to Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure, prompting the U.S. president to call for these attacks to stop amid a global fuel shortage stemming from the Russia-Ukraine war and the U.S.-Israeli conflict in Iran.

Zelensky has slammed the diesel deal between the U.S. and Russia, which would permit Russia to supply 300,000 tons of diesel to the U.S. and the global marketplace. He called it a “birthday gift” to Putin to “kill us, kill our children.”

Trump pushed back on Zelensky’s initial criticism of the deal, accusing his Ukrainian counterpart Saturday of wanting “ to make problems for the world ” and calling for Ukraine to elect a new president.

The deal comes less than a month before the midterm elections, where rising energy prices are dominating voters’ concerns. The Treasury Department said Friday that it would be lifting sanctions on Russian diesel to allow the fuel into the global marketplace.

Russia has historically been a major diesel exporter. Last year, it shipped about 2.5 million tons per month, but it was estimated to be shipping around 1 million metric tons in June, Reuters reported .

Facilitating the Russian diesel on the market comes as Trump faces an Oct. 18 deadline to decide whether to impose sanctions, as part of the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia Act, targeting Russia’s energy industry or waive those authorities in the face of national security concerns.