Trump claims that the request was made due to the ‘extreme cold’ in the Ukrainian country; The Russians claim that the appeal was made to help in negotiations
US President Donald Trump asked his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to stop attacks against Kiev “until February 1,” the Kremlin said, implying that Moscow had accepted the request.
Trump said he made the request due to the “extreme cold” in Ukraine, while the Kremlin said the appeal was made to help with negotiations. The date of the request was not revealed by the American president, nor by Moscow.
“I can say that President Trump, in fact, made a personal request to President Putin to refrain from attacking Kiev for a week, until February 1, with the aim of create favorable conditions for negotiations“, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov.
He did not mention that the request was related to freezing temperatures, presenting the demand as a call to facilitate negotiations, in the context in which Washington defends the end of the almost four-year war between the neighboring countries.
Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy grid left thousands of people without heating em Kiev during an exceptionally cold winter. The worst of the cold wave is about to arrive after February 1st. Ukraine’s meteorological agency warned that temperatures could drop to minus 30 degrees in the coming days.
“I personally asked President Putin not to fire on Kiev and the different cities for a week,” Trump said at a White House cabinet meeting on Thursday, adding that it was “due to the cold, the extreme cold.”
The last large-scale Russian attack on Kiev took place on the night of January 23-24.
*With information from AFP
