By AAMER MADHANI and SUSIE BLANN
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump said Thursday he has asked Russian President Vladimir Putin not to target the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv for one week as the region experiences frigid temperatures.
The call for a pause in attacks on Ukraine’s capital comes as Russia has been pounding the country’s critical infrastructure, leaving many around the country without heat in the dead of winter.
“I personally asked President Putin not to fire on Kyiv and the cities and towns for a week during this … extraordinary cold,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting at the White House.
Trump added that Putin has “agreed to that,” but there was no confirmation of that from Russia.
The Republican U.S. president added that he was pleased that Putin has agreed to the pause. Kyiv is forecast to enter a brutally cold stretch starting Friday that is expected to last into next week.
“A lot of people said, ‘Don’t waste the call. You’re not going to get that.’” Trump said of his request of Putin. “And he did it. And we’re very happy that they did it.”
Meanwhile, a Russian drone attack killed three people in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region overnight, authorities said Thursday, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that Moscow is planning another large-scale barrage despite plans for further U.S.-brokered peace talks at the weekend.
The Zaporizhzhia strike caused a major blaze in an apartment building, according to emergency services.
Firefighters also worked through the night to put out fires in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, where two people were injured, officials said.
Zelenskyy said Ukrainian intelligence reports indicate Russia is assembling forces for a major aerial attack. Previous large attacks, sometimes involving more than 800 drones as well as cruise and ballistic missiles, have targeted the Ukrainian power grid.
The ongoing attacks discredit the peace talks, Zelenskyy said. “Every single Russian strike does,” he said late Wednesday.
Russia’s daily bombardment of civilian areas behind the roughly 600-mile front line has continued despite international condemnation and attempts to end the fighting almost four years after Russia launched its devastating all-out invasion of Ukraine.
Ukraine is working with SpaceX to address the reported use of its Starlink satellite service by Russian attack drones, Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said Thursday on the Telegram messaging app.
He said that his team contacted the American aerospace company run by Elon Musk and “proposed ways to resolve the issue.” Starlink is a global internet network that relies on around 10,000 satellites orbiting Earth.
Fedorov thanked Musk and SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell for their “swift response and the start of work on resolving the situation.”
Musk and SpaceX have sought to steer a delicate course in the war.
Shotwell said a year after the invasion that SpaceX was happy to provide Ukrainians with connectivity “and help them in their fight for freedom.” At the same time, the company sought to restrict Ukraine’s use of Starlink for military purposes, she said.
The Russian drone attacks on Ukraine’s electricity network are denying people heating, light and running water during the coldest winter in years, and the hardship is set to get worse. Severe frost is expected to hit Ukraine in early February, with temperatures in some areas dropping to minus minus 22 Fahrenheit, the State Emergency Service warned.
Negotiations between the two sides are poised to resume on Sunday amid doubts about Moscow’s commitment to a settlement.
The European Union’s top diplomat accused Russia of not taking the talks seriously, calling Thursday in Brussels for more pressure to be exerted on Moscow to press it into making concessions.
“We see them increasing their attacks on Ukraine because they can’t make moves on the battlefield. So, they are attacking civilians,” Kaja Kallas said of Russia at a meeting of EU foreign ministers.
She stressed that Europe, which sees its own future security at stake in Ukraine, must be fully involved in talks to end the war. The push for a settlement has been led over the past year by the Trump administration, and European leaders fear their concerns may not be taken into account.
The number of soldiers killed, injured or missing on both sides during the war could reach 2 million by spring, with Russia sustaining the largest number of troop deaths for any major power in any conflict since World War II, according to an international think tank report published Tuesday.
Russia launched over 6,000 drones at Ukraine over the past month alone, according to Ukraine’s Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov. Russia is constantly improving its drones and its tactics, he said late Wednesday, prompting Ukraine to shift its air defense strategy, though he gave no details of the changes.
Meanwhile, Russia handed to Ukraine around 1,000 bodies of its soldiers killed in the war, Ukrainian authorities said.
At the same time, Russia received the bodies of 38 of its fallen soldiers, Russian lawmaker Shamsail Saraliev, who has been involved in exchanges of fallen soldiers’ bodies between Russia and Ukraine, told the RBC news outlet.
Madhani reported from Washington. Kamila Hrabchuk in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed to this report.
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
