Russia and Ukraine accusations test fragile energy truce

Moscow — Russia and Ukraine traded accusations on Wednesday of launching new attacks against each other’s energy facilities in violation of a US-brokered moratorium.

Both sides said they were providing details of the alleged violations to the US, which persuaded Moscow and Kyiv to agree to the limited truce last month as a stepping stone towards a full ceasefire.

Russia’s defence ministry said Ukraine had conducted drone and shelling attacks in the western Kursk region that cut off power to more than 1,500 households.

In the Russian-held part of Ukraine’s Luhansk region, the state gas company said a Ukraine military drone strike on a gas distribution station had left 11,000 customers near the town of Svatove with limited access to gas.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said a Russian drone hit an energy substation in Sumy region and artillery fire damaged a power line in Dnipropetrovsk, cutting off electricity to 4,000 consumers.

The Trump administration is impatient for the countries to move faster towards ending the three-year war.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said President Vladimir Putin’s signing the energy truce was evidence he was serious about engaging in a peace process, which is something that Kyiv and its European allies dispute.

Peskov said Moscow would keep working with the Americans despite what he called daily Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure.

Zelensky said on Tuesday Russia was breaking the energy truce and called on the US to boost sanctions against Moscow, as Trump has threatened to do.

Ukraine said last month it was willing to accept a full 30-day ceasefire but Putin refused, raising questions about how it would be monitored and concerns that Ukraine would use the breathing space to mobilise more soldiers and acquire more weapons from the West.

Reuters