Repair of a power facility after shelling (photo: GettyImages) Author: Ulyana Bezpalko
Russia and Ukraine have declared their readiness not to shell energy facilities. However, despite Putin's statements, the aggressor country continues to terrorize Ukrainian cities with “shaheds” every night. Whether the so-called energy truce works is in the article by RBC-Ukraine military and political observer Ulyana Bezpalko.
CONTENT:
- Ceasefire, but not quite
- What will happen next?
The Ukrainian delegation, meeting with US officials in Jeddah on March 11, agreed to a full 30-day ceasefire if Russia did the same. Donald Trump was supposed to make the same proposal to the Russian side. However, after Putin and Trump spoke in person a week later, the US demand for a full ceasefire was lost in broader language and more modest “successes.”
The White House press release on the call said that “movement toward peace will begin with a ceasefire on energy and infrastructure.” Trump himself wrote about Moscow's agreement to “an immediate ceasefire on all energy and infrastructure.”
However, the Kremlin's press release stated that Putin was ready for a “mutual 30-day waiver of strikes” only “on energy infrastructure facilities” and immediately allegedly gave the corresponding order to his military. Volodymyr Zelensky also agreed to stop strikes on Russian energy facilities.
In Washington, they decided to pass all this off as yet another “victory”, despite the fact that Russia continues to attack Ukrainian regions every night with hundreds of “shahids”, their modifications and false targets – “blanks”.
Ceasefire, but not quite
Daily Russian long-range drone strikes have been ongoing since September. Moscow has sometimes carried out a series of combined attacks, launching both UAVs and missiles at Ukrainian regions at the same time. The aggressor carried out its latest such strike on March 7.
Over these months, Russia has perfected its drone attack tactics. The enemy sends a swarm of drones – both attack and decoy – to one target to overload the Ukrainian air defense. And at the same time, when approaching the target, these drones maneuver in altitude – sometimes flying too high, sometimes too low, as a result of which they disappear from radars. At the same time, the Russians can launch 100-200+ of these UAVs per night. All this together makes it difficult to shoot them down.
If in December enemy shelling was concentrated on facilities providing generation and transmission of electricity, then since January this focus has shifted to Ukraine’s gas transportation system.
However, RBC-Ukraine's sources in military circles claim that since March 19, after Trump's conversation with Putin, Russian missiles and drones have not attacked Ukrainian energy facilities. And Ukraine, after Zelensky's corresponding agreement to an “energy truce,” has also not struck Russian energy, including oil refineries.
The Defense Forces have been systematically attacking Russian oil refineries for at least a year, on the one hand, to leave the occupation army without fuel, and on the other, to reduce the Kremlin’s ability to finance an aggressive war.
“It looks like the Russians haven't targeted energy for almost a week. No such strikes have been recorded since March 19. Let's see how it goes, because so far this hasn't been written down anywhere in any way,” one of the sources said.
Consequences of a Russian missile attack on Sumy on March 24 (photo: Suspilne Sumi)
If we monitor information about Russian and Ukrainian attacks, then there really were no public mentions (not from the Russian Ministry of Defense, but from reliable sources) of the destruction of energy facilities either here or in Russia after Trump’s conversation with Putin and Zelensky’s subsequent statement.
Updated: At the same time, according to presidential adviser Dmitry Litvin, since March 18 there have been 8 confirmed Russian strikes on Ukrainian energy facilities. Russia, Litvin says, has since struck Ukrainian energy facilities with bombs, attack drones, and FPV drones.
Although this does not prevent Moscow from continuing to terrorize Ukraine every night with hundreds of “shahids” and strike other targets. According to the publication, most of the Russian long-range drones over the past week have been aimed at military facilities, airfields, railways and military-industrial complex facilities.
At the same time, there have been no significant changes in the number of “shaheeds” launched over the past week. Moreover, according to RBC-Ukraine, Russia has already opened three new sites for launching UAVs – all in the Primorsko-Akhtarsk area, in addition to the seven already functioning. This could allow the aggressor to increase the number of “shaheeds” launched during one attack, that is, in one day or night.
It is clear that not all Russian drones fly precisely and at the correct coordinates, which is why they sometimes hit Ukrainian civilian objects. Although it is impossible to rule out the fact that individual strikes are purely terrorist in nature and are aimed specifically at hitting civilian buildings.
What will happen next?
It is worth noting that this so-called energy truce is currently happening “by default” – the ceasefire on energy and control over its observance have not been documented or agreed upon anywhere. Even after the US negotiations with Ukraine and Russia in Saudi Arabia, which took place the other day, the statements of the parties regarding the strikes on energy differ.
The White House said that they would work with us and Russia to develop a mechanism to ban strikes on energy facilities. Ukrainian government officials said that they had agreed to “implement agreements on a complete ban on strikes on the energy infrastructure of Ukraine and Russia.”
According to President Zelensky, the energy ceasefire will come into force immediately after the corresponding statement from the United States. The Kremlin said that Russia and the United States “agreed to develop measures to ban strikes on energy facilities in Russia and Ukraine for a period of 30 days, starting from March 18, 2025.”
At the same time, Zelensky said that Kyiv had given the Americans a list of energy facilities to which a moratorium on strikes should be applied. While the Kremlin also published a list of energy facilities that cannot be hit, which was allegedly agreed upon with the United States. These are oil refineries, oil and gas pipelines, gas storage facilities, nuclear power plants, thermal power plants, thermal power plants, substations, transformers, distributors and hydroelectric power plant dams.
Along with the issue of attacks on energy, the parties also touched on security at sea, and there is no more clarity on this issue. Both the US and Ukraine have stated that they will ensure the safety of shipping in the Black Sea, in particular for commercial vessels.
At the same time, the Defense Forces have been independently ensuring such security and functioning of the grain corridor for more than a year and a half. What would be relevant for Ukraine is a ban on Russia attacking our ports, the presence of loaded missile carriers and tactical aircraft equipped with missiles in the Black Sea. And it is still unknown whether any progress has been made in these matters.
If at the previous meeting Ukraine and the US discussed a complete ceasefire, this time the discussion was only about energy security and at sea (photo: mfa.gov.ua)
The Kremlin, in turn, has put forward its own conditions for ensuring security in the Black Sea – they concern the easing of sanctions against the Russian agricultural sector and fertilizer production. In particular, Moscow says that it wants the restoration of Russian exports of agricultural products and fertilizers, the lifting of sanctions against Rosselkhozbank and its return to the SWIFT system. These demands actually coincide with the ultimatums that Russia put forward in order to continue the operation of the grain corridor in the summer of 2023.
The next few days will show how much the Kremlin will adhere to any commitments – not to Ukraine, but, first of all, to the United States. What the previous days have shown is that the path to a complete ceasefire, and even more so to a possible end to Russia's war against Ukraine, will not be quick.
Putin is demonstrating to Trump in every way his readiness to cease fire. And perhaps he is not being disingenuous in this, since he cannot help but realize that the war has reached a stalemate and neither side is capable of making significant breakthroughs at the front. But Putin is in no hurry to stop the fighting, unlike Trump. And so the Russian dictator initially flirts with the American president's desire to report on quick victories, giving him instead small “successes” in exchange for Washington's compliance.
“It's as if Putin is marinating Trump, cajoling and playing with his ego. He gives him a reason to say in portions that he has achieved this and that. And at the same time he puts forward demands for more, for example: we are ready for a complete ceasefire, but under such and such conditions. And Trump goes to think. True, there are not stupid people in the American administration. The question is when their patience for playing this game will run out and they will start putting pressure on Russia,” one of RBC-Ukraine's informed interlocutors reasons.
In this Kremlin game, there remains a significant danger for Ukraine – that Moscow will not end up with all the “carrots” while Kyiv will be left with only the “sticks”. A fair division of these “sticks” and “carrots” will obviously be a key task for Ukrainian, European and American diplomacy in the coming months. And the White House should already understand that Ukraine is unlikely to agree to all possible concessions on its part for the sake of Putin calling it a “victory” and Trump – “the end of the war”.