Friday 30 / January / 2026
The Kremlin said on Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin had received a personal request from his US counterpart, Donald Trump to halt strikes on Kyiv until February 1 in order to create a favourable environment for peace negotiations.
According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Trump "did indeed make a personal request to President Putin to refrain from striking Kyiv for a week until February 1 in order to create favourable conditions for negotiations."
Peskov did not reveal when the request was made and did not explicitly confirm if Putin had accepted the request.
During a Cabinet meeting in Washington on Thursday, US President Donald Trump said that he had asked Putin to refrain from striking Ukraine for one week amid the extreme cold weather.
"I personally asked President Putin not to fire on Kyiv and the cities and towns for a week, and he agreed to that," Trump said, attributing his request to the "extraordinary cold."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said it will reciprocate if Russia forgoes strikes on the country's energy infrastructure amid a period of bitterly cold weather. The Ukrainian weather agency forecasts temperatures as low as -30 degrees Celsius (-22 degrees Fahrenheit) in the coming days.
The next round of trilateral peace talks between Russia, Ukraine and the United States were set to take place in Abu Dhabi on Sunday, but Zelenskyy said the date or location could change.
Zelenskyy says Ukraine is ready for limited ceasefire with Russia
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukraine would stop attacking Russian targets as part of a limited ceasefire if Russia stopped striking Ukrainian energy infrastructure.
"If Russia doesn't fire on our energy facilities, then we won't attack theirs," he told journalists. However, he added that no such assurances had been received from Moscow yet.
Zelenskyy said the proposal for a limited ceasefire came from Washington. He added that there had been no direct contact between Kyiv and Moscow regarding the matter.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed on Friday that US President Donald Trump had made the appeal to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to halt strikes on Ukrainian cities and towns for a week but did not divulge Putin's response.
Zelenskyy also said that the teams negotiating an end to the Russian invasion of Ukraine have failed to reach a compromise on control of Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region.
"So far, we have been unable to find a compromise on the territorial issue, specifically regarding part of eastern Ukraine," he told journalists.
Moscow has long demanded Ukraine cede Donetsk — over two thirds of which is under Russian control — as part of any peace deal.
Zelenskyy said that further talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations, mediated by Washington, were expected to take place on Sunday in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. However, he added that the date and venue could still change.
