Trump Says Putin Honoured Ukraine Ceasefire Despite Attacks

Donald Trump has insisted Vladimir Putin kept his word on implementing a week-long ceasefire in Ukraine, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary.

The US president told reporters the Russian president vowed not to target his European neighbour for seven days – from Sunday, January 25 until Sunday, February 1 – and suggested the recent attacks did not breach their agreement.

When reminded that Putin bombarded Ukrainian cities on Monday, Trump told reporters: “I know, it [the truce] was Sunday to Sunday.

“It opened up and he hit them hard last night. He kept his word on that. It’s a lot. But we will take anything, because it’s really, really cold out there.”

But Trump only declared this supposed truce last Thursday, saying: “I personally asked President Putin not to fire into Kyiv and the various towns for a week and he agreed to do that.

“And I have to tell you, it was very nice. People said, ‘Don’t waste the call, you’re not going to get that.’

“And he did it and we’re very happy that they did it because on top of everything else that’s not what they need is missiles coming into their towns and cities.”

Russia struck Ukraine hours later, sending a total of 111 long-range drones and a ballistic missile into the country.

A city bus driver was then killed along with five civilians in Kherson, with authorities reporting ongoing attacks across the country.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he understood the ceasefire had started late last Friday.

He said while there was no formal ceasefire agreement, both sides agreed on the US plan to halt strikes on each other’s energy facilities.

But Russia attacked again on Sunday, taking out a bus carrying miners in the Dnipropetrovsk region in a deadly assault.

Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Putin had specifically agreed not to strike Kyiv, suggesting that did not apply to the whole country.

He said: “I can say that President Trump did indeed make a personal request to President Putin to refrain from striking Kyiv for a week, until February 1, as a way to create more hospitable conditions for negotiations.”

The pause was supposed to last while US-led trilateral peace talks took place in Abu Dhabi.

Speaking on Wednesday, after the latest attacks, Zelenskyy said: “We await the reaction of America to the Russian strikes.

“It was the US proposal to halt strikes on energy during diplomacy and severe winter weather.

“The president of the United States made the request personally. Russia responded with a record number of ballistic missiles.”