The US president says the Russian leader has promised to stop bombing as freezing cold temperatures grip the countryU.S. President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, has agreed to a temporary halt in the periodic bombings that are destroying Ukraine’s energy system. “I personally asked President Putin not to fire into Kyiv and various towns for a week, and he agreed to do that,” Trump said in Washington. Trump said that he framed his request to Putin as an act of clemency given the dire situation. The Ukrainian government considers Russia’s destruction of the energy system a war crime, a view also supported by the European Commission. The first, agreed in March 2025, lasted until August, when Ukraine resumed attacks on Russia’s oil and gas industry to weaken its exports.