President says he is open to scaling back strikes on oil and wider energy industry if Moscow reciprocates. What we know on day 1,496
Some of Ukraine’s allies have sent Kyiv “signals” about the possibility of scaling back the country’s long-range strikes on Russia’s oil sector as global energy prices have surged, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday. The Ukrainian president said he was ready to reciprocate if Russia stopped attacking Ukraine’s energy system, and that Kyiv was open to an Easter ceasefire. “Recently, following such a severe global energy crisis, we have indeed received signals from some of our partners asking about how to reduce our responses in the oil sector and the energy sector of the Russian Federation,” Zelenskyy said in a WhatsApp briefing with journalists. A Reuters source familiar with the situation said US officials had conveyed this message to their Ukrainian counterparts as part of their regular conversations, adding that the initial “signals” appeared to have come from Moscow. The US state department and the Russian embassy in Washington didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. Fresh from a four-day visit to the Middle East, Zelenskyy said he had reached agreement with some countries in the region to provide energy support to Ukraine. Over the weekend, he said he had reached a deal on diesel deliveries for a year to Ukraine, without providing further details.
