On Sunday, US President Donald Trump claimed Kyiv and Moscow had agreed to an energy truce.
The surprise announcement followed his equally surprising Friday announcement of a diesel deal with Russia, in which Moscow would supply millions of tons of diesel to the world market, before he lambasted Kyiv for attacking Russia’s refineries and called for President Volodymyr Zelensky’s removal.
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Kyiv has maintained that it would only agree to a bilateral energy truce, under which Russia would stop attacking Ukraine’s energy grid in exchange for Kyiv halting strikes on Russian refineries as, despite Trump’s Sunday announcement, Ukraine’s power plants have continued to come under Russian attacks on Monday morning.
But the latest proposal, according to Axios, covers only refineries, of which Ukraine has just one compared with Russia’s dozens, which inevitably favor Moscow.
The Sunday announcement marked the fourth major US attempt to boast of an energy truce since Trump returned to office in January 2025.
The previous announcement was recent, on Sept. 14, when Trump similarly declared an energy truce on his Truth Social platform.
“Ukraine has agreed not to hit Russian Energy targets. Russia has agreed to do so, likewise,” Trump wrote.
Zelensky, without saying Kyiv had agreed, said it supported the idea if the truce was bilateral and enforced. Moscow, meanwhile, called it a “very good idea” without elaborating, and Trump’s declared truce fizzled out as Ukraine’s energy grid continued to be pounded and Russia’s refineries continued to be set ablaze.
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Premature announcements aside, why has an energy truce never materialized?
Below is an overview of the previous attempts, originally published on Sept. 15, 2026, but with slight revisions, outlining when and where everything went wrong.
Trump’s previous attempts on energy truce
The early 2026 attempt was short-lived, while the most serious attempt yielded a 30-day truce proposal in March 2025.
In March 2025, everyone ostensibly agreed to a 30-day energy truce soon after Trump’s return to office – only not the same version.
These differing interpretations allowed both sides to accuse the other of violations and use them to justify retaliatory strikes, while the lack of a monitoring mechanism also dampened the proposal’s effectiveness.
In short, US officials said Washington had reached separate agreements with Ukraine and Russia to “develop measures for implementing” a ceasefire, but the duration and list of facilities differed for each.
From the Russian side, it listed March 18 as the start date – despite the official talks in Saudi Arabia starting on March 23 – and omitted facilities that Kyiv said were included in its version.
In a statement to European Pravda at the time, Ukraine’s Ministry of Energy said Russia’s list did not include its oil and gas production facilities, contrary to Kyiv’s agreement with the US. The exact list of facilities Kyiv presented was unclear.
And violations soon took place – on March 28, Russia struck gas production facilities in Ukraine’s Central Poltava region. The same day, Russia accused Ukraine of firing US-made HIMARS missiles at the Sudzha gas metering station in the Kursk region bordering Ukraine, a claim that Kyiv dismissed as a Russian “false flag.”
In other words, no ceasefire.
Another attempt at an energy truce took place in early 2026 and lasted a few days.
In late January, Trump said he had appealed to Russian leader Vladimir Putin to stop strikes on Kyiv and Ukrainian energy infrastructure to facilitate peace talks. Moscow confirmed the request and said it would last until Feb. 1, while Kyiv said there was no deal yet, but it would reciprocate nonetheless.
On Feb. 2, Russia resumed strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, leaving locals in the Kharkiv, Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, and Cherkasy regions without power.
Why might Ukraine and Russia want an energy truce?
Ukraine is concerned about a difficult winter, while Russia is facing an unprecedented fuel crisis.
For Ukraine, energy infrastructure – including power stations, substations and gas storage facilities – was hit hard by Russian attacks in previous winters. Repairs are costly and time-consuming, and with the country facing a budget crunch, any further Russian strikes would put additional pressure on a battered system.
For Russia, meanwhile, Ukrainian strikes on oil infrastructure have hit export revenues and severely cut domestic fuel supplies, raising concerns about public discontent. A recent think tank report suggested that Russia’s overall exports and revenues dropped by 7% and 8% respectively, with extra spending needed to import gasoline and diesel to keep the country running.
But at the same time, both Kyiv and Moscow also expect each other to break this winter, with top officials and commanders calling the season a win-or-break moment in the war, casting doubt on whether an energy truce can hold.
Leo Chiu is a journalist and editor based in Eastern Europe since 2015. He has witnessed two presidential elections in Belarus and traveled widely to conflict zones and contested regions, producing reporting that bridges the gap between major developments and local realities.