KHARKIV: Russia said on Friday that a 30-day pause on Ukrainian energy site strikes has expired, a step away from peace just as Washington threatened to exit ceasefire efforts if progress was not made soon. US President Donald Trump has been pressing Moscow and Kyiv to agree to a truce, but has failed to extract any major concessions from the Kremlin, despite repeated negotiations between his administration and Russia on the three-year war.
One of the few commitments Trump had wrangled from Putin — a temporary moratorium on striking Ukrainian energy infrastructure — "expired" on Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in response to a question. Neither side set up a mechanism for monitoring the moratorium and both sides routinely accused the other of breaking it. "As of this time, there have been no other instructions from the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, President Putin," Peskov said.
Russia kept up strikes on Ukraine unabated overnight, firing at least six missiles and dozens of drones at Ukraine, killing two people in the northeastern regions of Kharkiv and Sumy and wounding 70 others, officials said. A photographer in the city of Kharkiv witnessed the aftermath of one strike, which left rubble and debris scattered across a street. An elderly resident could be seen bandaged, her face smeared with blood, while residents assessed the damage.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky slammed the attacks, which came just days before Easter. "This is how Russia started Good Friday — with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, shahed drones. A mockery of our people and cities," he said on Telegram. Russia said it had hit "key drone production sites" and Ukrainian military airfields. Since taking office, Trump has embarked on a quest to warm ties with the Kremlin that has alarmed Kyiv and driven a wedge between the US and its European allies. Putin last month rejected a joint US-Ukrainian proposal for a full and unconditional pause in the conflict, while the Kremlin has made a truce in the Black Sea conditional on the West lifting certain sanctions.
Trump has also repeatedly expressed anger and frustration at Zelensky in a marked break from policy under his predecessor, Joe Biden. The United States is pushing Ukraine into a deal that would give Washington sweeping access to its mineral resources. Ukraine's prime minister will visit Washington next week for talks with top US officials aimed at clinching the minerals and resources deal by April 26, according to a US-Ukraine signed "memorandum of intent" published on Friday.
France hosted meetings between US and European officials in Paris on Thursday, saying the talks had launched a "positive process". The meetings included French President Emmanuel Macron, Rubio and US envoy Steve Witkoff. European officials had expressed dismay at being shut out from the peace process, while Ukraine has expressed concern that Witkoff — one of Trump's closest allies — is biased towards Russia.
Rubio said on Friday that Washington could soon exit efforts to reach a Ukraine ceasefire if it decided peace was not "doable", after meeting European and Ukrainian officials in Paris. "The United States has been helping Ukraine over the last three years and we want it (the conflict) to end, but it's not our war," Rubio said. "We need to figure out here now, within a matter of days, whether this is doable in the short term, because if it's not, then I think we're just going to move on," he said at the Le Bourget airport outside Paris.
Zelensky accused Witkoff on Thursday of having adopted the "strategy of the Russian side", after the US envoy suggested a peace deal with Moscow hinged on the status of Ukraine's occupied territories. "He is consciously or unconsciously, I don't know, spreading Russian narratives," Zelensky said. — AFP
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