Trump suggests US take ownership of Ukrainian power plants for security

US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday that they had a constructive call about moving towards a ceasefire between Kyiv and Moscow, with the White House suggesting the US could take control of Ukrainian power plants to ensure their security.

Mr Trump told Mr Zelensky that the US could be “very helpful in running those plants with its electricity and utility expertise”, according to a White House statement from secretary of state Marco Rubio and national security adviser Mike Waltz that described the call as “fantastic”.

Mr Trump added that “American ownership of those plants could be the best protection for that infrastructure”.

Mr Zelensky and Mr Trump discussed in general terms the possibility of a ceasefire, according to a senior Ukrainian official.

During the call, there was an emphasis on how any ceasefire process would need to be monitored and that the teams still needed to resolve technical issues, said the official, who described the call as “a very good conversation, positive, with the jokes”.

During the call, Mr Zelensky requested additional Patriot defence missile systems.

Mr Rubio and Mr Waltz said Mr Trump “agreed to work with him to find what was available, particularly in Europe”.

In a social media post, Mr Trump said his call with Mr Zelensky was to “align both Russia and Ukraine in terms of their requests and needs” as he seeks to bring a halt to the fighting.

“We are very much on track,” Mr Trump added.

Mr Trump spoke on Tuesday to Russian President Vladimir Putin about a possible partial ceasefire.

Mr Putin agreed not to target energy infrastructure but refused to back a full 30-day ceasefire.

But before his call with Mr Trump, Mr Zelensky said Mr Putin’s agreement was “very much at odds with reality”, after an overnight barrage of drone strikes across the country.

“Even last night, after Putin’s conversation with … Trump, when Putin said that he was allegedly giving orders to stop strikes on Ukrainian energy, there were 150 drones launched overnight, including on energy facilities,” Mr Zelensky said at a news conference in Helsinki with Finnish President Alexander Stubb.

Russia responded by saying it had halted its targeting of Ukraine’s energy facilities and accused Kyiv of attacking equipment near one of its pipelines.

“Unfortunately, we see that for now there is no reciprocity on the part of the Kyiv regime,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

The White House described the call between Mr Trump and Mr Putin as the first step in a “movement to peace” that Washington hopes will include a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea and eventually a full and lasting end to the fighting.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said that Mr Putin’s demands during the call with Mr Trump would amount to “Ukrainian capitulation”.

“Putin is attempting to hold the temporary ceasefire proposal hostage in order to extract pre-emptive concessions ahead of formal negotiations to end the war,” the ISW said in an analysis of readouts from the calls.

White House national security adviser Mike Waltz said on social media that he and his Russian counterpart, Yuri Ushakov, agreed on Wednesday that their teams would meet soon in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, “to focus on implementing and expanding the partial ceasefire President Trump secured from Russia”.

It was not immediately clear who would be part of the delegations or if Ukrainian officials were also invited to take part in the Saudi Arabia talks.

Shortly after the lengthy phone call between Mr Trump and Mr Putin on Tuesday, air raid sirens sounded in Kyiv, followed by explosions as residents took shelter.

Despite efforts to repel the attack, several strikes hit civilian infrastructure, including two hospitals, a railway and more than 20 houses, Mr Zelensky said.

The Russian defence ministry said its military had launched seven drones at power facilities related to the military-industrial complex in Ukraine’s southern Mykolaiv region, but that it shot them down after receiving Mr Putin’s order to not hit energy infrastructure.

Moscow accused Ukraine of targeting its energy facility in the Krasnodar region bordering the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014, several hours after the Putin and Trump talks.

The ministry said that three drones targeted oil transfer equipment that feeds the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, causing a fire and leading one oil tank to lose pressure.

“It is absolutely clear that we are talking about yet another provocation deliberately concocted by the Kyiv regime, aimed at derailing the peace initiatives of the US president,” the ministry said.

Russia said that its air defences intercepted 57 Ukrainian drones over the Azov Sea and several Russian regions – the border provinces of Kursk and Bryansk and the nearby regions of Oryol and Tula.

Mr Zelensky said that “words of a ceasefire” were not enough.

He rejected Mr Putin’s key condition that western allies stop providing military aid and intelligence to Ukraine.

He said that doing so would endanger lives if citizens were blind to incoming air raids, and lead to the continuation of the war.

“I don’t think anybody should make any concessions in terms of helping Ukraine, but rather, assistance to Ukraine should be increased,” Mr Zelensky said.

“This will be a signal that Ukraine is ready for any surprises from the Russians.”

Mr Zelensky said that one of the most difficult issues in future negotiations would be the issue of territorial concessions.

“For us, the red line is the recognition of the Ukrainian temporarily occupied territories as Russian,” he said.

“We will not go for it.”