Trump claims Russia and Ukraine agreed not to strike energy facilities — Kyiv denies it

US President Donald Trump said on Monday that Ukraine and Russia had agreed to stop striking each other's energy infrastructure. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, however, denied that any such agreement existed almost immediately afterward.

"Ukraine has agreed not to attack Russian Energy Targets. Russia has agreed to do the same!" Trump wrote in his signature style on social media. Over the weekend, the American president had already said he had asked Zelensky to halt Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries, arguing that rising fuel prices were "hurting the whole world."

Trump blames the war for rising fuel prices

Trump has increasingly pointed to the war in Ukraine as the main driver behind high gasoline and diesel prices — even though the recent price spike is actually linked to the US war against Iran and Tehran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. In his Monday post, the president repeated this claim, saying "the World Price of Diesel is unusually high, and that is because of the Russia/Ukraine War, not Iran."

Observers suggest Trump's statement may be aimed primarily at American voters. According to pre-election polling, high gas prices driven by the standoff with Iran could cost Trump's Republican Party its majority in both chambers of Congress in the November elections.

Zelensky: there is no real agreement

Zelensky pushed back almost immediately, denying that any deal with Russia had been struck. He said Ukraine has long proposed that partners help broker exactly this kind of arrangement — one covering not just energy infrastructure but other critical facilities as well — but the key condition is that someone must guarantee Moscow actually honors it.

"If our partners are ready to ensure that Russia truly stops attacking our energy system, other energy facilities, critical infrastructure, and food supply routes, then we are, of course, ready to stop our strikes in exactly the same way," Zelensky wrote on X.

Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz