Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has called on US leader Donald Trump to broker peace in Russia-Ukraine war like in "the Middle East" during a phone call on Saturday.
Zelenskiy wrote about a "positive and productive" call with Donald Trump in a post on Facebook, congratulating Trump for his “outstanding” ceasefire plan in the Middle East. “If a war can be stopped in one region, then surely other wars can be stopped as well, including the Russian war,” Zelenskiy stressed, calling for Trump to pressure Moscow into negotiations. Earlier on Friday, Zelenskiy called on Kyiv's Western allies to help boost his country's air defences and to step up economic pressure on Russia to bring the Kremlin to negotiation table.
The call came a day after Russia launched a massive air raid on Ukraine's energy grid, switching off electricity to parts of capital Kyiv and nine other Ukrainian regions over the weekend. The power supply was supplied later. “I informed President Trump about Russia’s attacks on our energy system - and I appreciate his willingness to support us,” Zelenskyy said on X, adding that they had a “very positive and productive” discussion on “concrete agreements” for strengthening Ukraine’s air defences.
The phone call took place amid raising concerns in Kyiv over intensified Russian air bombardments targeting the country's energy grid and civilian infrastructure with hundreds of drones and missiles at a time, as well as Kyiv's increased abilities to counter these attacks. Earlier, chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, Oleksandr Syrskyi, warned that Russia was scaling up its air bombardments. “New challenges await us ahead. Over the past month, the enemy has increased the number of air attack weapons and although our air defence is about 74% effective, we need to make additional efforts to cover the rear energy sector, critical infrastructure and logistics,” Syrskyi said. Russia this week launched one of its largest air attacks on Ukraine, involving 465 Shaheed kamikaze drones and 32 cruise and ballistic missiles.
The latest talk between Trump and Zelenskiy follows discussions over Washington's possible supply of long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin has long warned that the supply of Tomahawk missile that has a range of over 2,6000 km and puts Moscow within that Ukrainian army's range, would a "completely new, qualitative new stage of escalation."
