EU will welcome Ukraine energy truce ‘when it holds’, bloc’s foreign policy chief says

Jennifer Rankin

The EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the EU would welcome a truce on striking energy infrastructure between Ukraine and Russia “when it holds”, after US President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire, which Volodymyr Zelenskyy said was “news to me”.
Arriving at a meeting of EU foreign ministers on Monday, Kallas said:

We welcome the energy ceasefire when it holds. We haven’t yet seen that also Russia will stick to it.

Kallas said she wanted to see people included in any ceasefire. But an energy truce also had to cover more than just oil refineries in the two countries “where Ukraine has one and Russia has plenty, so it’s definitely in the benefit of the Russians.”

She did not respond directly to a question about Trump’s diesel deal with Vladimir Putin, saying: “That is why we are, of course, continuing our path. We are now adopting 1,600 listings because we only see that pressure on Russia would work.”

The EU will finalise later today sanctions against 1,600 Russian individuals and entities, targeting the military-industrial complex and officials involved in “sham elections” in Ukraine’s occupied territories.
Kallas said EU sanctions “would work so much better if our partners from the UK and from the US would be aligned with us”. She went on to say that the UK was aligned, “but if the US would be aligned, if they would enact the Graham bill regarding Russia, we could really put the pressure so that Russia will finish this war”.

Trump signed the Lindsey O Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act into law earlier this month, which is aimed at depleting Russia’s ability to continue funding the war by targeting its natural gas and oil revenues, as well as countries that continue to buy Russian energy.

Who might win the Nobel prize for economics today?

Graeme Wearden

The biggest prize in economics, the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, will be announced at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm from 10.45am UK time.

Leading the betting on Polymarket, at 30% this morning, is David Autor, professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Autor is a labour economist, who has examined how technology changes the world of work.

Another potential winner is Ariél Pakes, the Thomas Professor of Economics at Harvard University, currently at a 19% chance on Polymarket.

Pakes’s work has focused on developing methods to empirically analyse market responses to environmental and policy changes, such as mergers and deregulation.

Third, at 12%, is Susan Athey, the Economics of Technology Professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Athey, the former consulting chief economist for Microsoft, was the first woman to win the John Bates Clark Medal (awarded to the top economist under the age of 40).

There’s also some interest in American macroeconomist and monetary theorist Michael Woodford (currently at 10%) – he’s one of the architects of modern forward guidance, the idea that central banks can control the economy through influencing public expectations about inflation, rather than just through interest rates.

There have been multiple reports of overnight Russian attacks on Ukraine, affecting energy infrastructure and hitting civilian areas.

Oleksandr Hanzha, head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration, said this morning that Russia attacked three districts of the region “more than 10 times” with artillery and drones. The strikes caused fires in the Petrykivka and Mykolaiv areas of the Dniprovskyi district, Hanzha added in his Telegram post, which noted there were no injuries from the attacks.

Residents in several streets in Izyum, south-east of Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine, were reportedly left without power after a Russian attack damaged power grids.

Meanwhile, the governor of Ukraine’s Zhytomyr region, Vitaliy Bunechko, said Russian forces have been “repeatedly shelling” the north of the region “since the evening”.

“Railway and energy infrastructure facilities in the Korosten district were under attack,” he added in a Telegram post this morning, noting that the fires were quickly extinguished. Bunechko said there was no information about the victims or their injuries yet.

⁠At ⁠least 12 ​people ⁠were ⁠injured in ​several ‌Russian ‌attacks ‌on Ukraine’s Kharkiv ‌on ​Monday morning, ⁠mayor Ihor ​Terekhov ​said. Here are some of the latest images being sent to us over the newswires from Ukraine’s second largest city:

Luke Harding

The fast-moving row between Washington and Kyiv began on Friday when Trump announced he was lifting sanctions on Russian diesel exports. He said the move would reduce global and domestic fuel prices before next month’s US midterm elections.

A furious Zelenskyy called the decision “weak” and said it would generate “billions” in extra revenue for Putin, enabling him to wage war “even more intensely”. An equally irate Trump said Zelenskyy should “damn well stop” hitting Russian refineries. Ukraine needed a “new leader”, he said on Saturday.

Responding to Trump, Zelenskyy said it was up to Ukrainians to choose “one or another leader”. He told ABC News he was willing to accept Trump’s demands and to organise elections, but only if Putin agreed to a “total” 60-day ceasefire.

The New York Times has reported that US officials have offered the Kremlin lucrative economic incentives in exchange for a ceasefire. They reportedly include releasing billions in Russian sovereign assets that are frozen. The Trump administration also revisited a plan to sell parts of Russia’s energy company, Lukoil. The multibillion deal would benefit Middle Eastern investors, the paper reported, some with “business ties” to US negotiators. You can read the full story here:

We are restarting our live coverage of the latest developments in Europe after Donald Trump’s announcement of what he called an energy ceasefire in the Russia-Ukraine war.

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said on Sunday evening that Russian strikes hit Ukrainian energy facilities despite the US president having claimed both sides had agreed to stop hitting each other’s energy infrastructure.

In a post on X, Zelenskyy said a drone had hit a Kyiv power plant on Sunday, leading to power outages in the Ukrainian capital. Shortly after, he said there had been a strike on a power plant in the north-eastern city of Kharkiv, adding: “Ukrainian skies have been infested with Russian ‘shaheds’ all day”, referring to a type of Iranian-made drone commonly used in the conflict.

Meanwhile, Russian ⁠attacks killed six people ⁠in two Ukrainian ⁠cities ​on Sunday, including a strike ⁠on a grocery store in Kharkiv, ​where ‌three people died ‌and 20 were ‌injured, Ukrainian officials said. Two children were ‌among the injured, the regional governor said. In western ​Ukraine, ‌a Russian strike ​killed ​three people, officials ​said.

On Sunday morning Trump had announced that “effective immediately, there is an ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine”. “Both parties have agreed. Do not break it!” he wrote on his Truth Social platform, without further details.

Zelenskyy expressed surprise at the announcement, saying the deal was “news to me”, while Russia has still not confirmed its agreement. Zelenskyy said on Telegram yesterday that: “Ukraine is ready to refrain from striking Russian energy infrastructure – and we count on the same readiness from Russia.”

In other developments:

• Nato Supreme Allied Cmdr Europe Alexus Grynkewich is due to deliver a warning to Russia at a security conference in Warsaw over the alliance’s ability to counter any attack from Moscow.

• The Lithuanian ⁠foreign minister Kestutis ​Budrys said the EU should designate the Russian ‌intelligence agency GRU ​as ⁠a ​terrorist organisation.

• The Nobel memorial prize in economics, the final award in this year’s cycle, will be announced at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm from 10.45am UK time.

• Trump’s surprise ceasefire announcement came two days after he announced a controversial agreement to buy Russian diesel fuel – temporarily lifting US sanactions – prompting outrage from Ukraine and its European allies, who said it would embolden Moscow.

• The Trump administration is threatening to stop the procurement system that provides Ukraine with weapons in order to press Kyiv to halt its deep strikes on Russian energy infrastructure, the Financial Times has quoted officials in Europe as saying. They said the US was lobbying European capitals and Kyiv in an attempt to end the attacks on Russian oil refineries.