Trump suggests to Zelenskyy that the US should take ownership of Ukrainian power plants for security

KYIV, Ukraine — President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday that they had a constructive call about moving toward a partial ceasefire between Kyiv and Moscow, with the White House suggesting the U.S. could take control of Ukrainian power plants to ensure their security.

Trump told Zelenskyy that the U.S could be ‘’very helpful in running those plants with its electricity and utility expertise," according to a White House statement from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and national security adviser Mike Waltz that described the call as ‘’fantastic.‘’

Trump added that ‘’American ownership of those plants could be the best protection for that infrastructure.‘’ The idea was floated even as the Trump administration looks to finalize an agreement to gain access to Ukraine’s critical minerals as partial repayment for U.S. support for Ukraine during the war.

Weeks after a disastrous Oval Office meeting between the two leaders that led to Trump temporarily pausing intelligence sharing and military aid to Ukraine, Trump and Zelenskyy had ‘’a very good conversation'' in which they joked around, according to a senior Ukrainian official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to comment publicly. There was an emphasis during the call on how any ceasefire process would need to be monitored and how the negotiating teams would still need to resolve technical issues, the official said.

During the call, Zelenskyy requested additional Patriot defense missile systems. Rubio and Waltz said Trump ‘’agreed to work with him to find what was available, particularly in Europe."

Trump has made clear that quickly ending the war is a top priority for his new administration. He has repeatedly complained about the cost — the U.S. has sent Ukraine more than $180 billion in military and economic aid since the start of the war.

The call came a day after Trump held similar talks with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, who agreed not to target Ukraine’s energy infrastructure but refused to back a full 30-day ceasefire that Trump proposed. Zelenskyy signed off on the limited ceasefire deal to halt strikes on Russian energy infrastructure, according to the White House.

According to the Kremlin, Putin made clear to Trump that there must be a cessation of foreign military aide and intelligence sharing as part of any deal. But White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Wednesday underscored that U.S. ‘’intelligence sharing in terms of defense for Ukraine'' would continue.

The Kremlin says Kyiv isn’t upholding its end of the bargain

Prior to his call with Trump, Zelenskyy said Putin’s limited ceasefire pledge was ‘’very much at odds with reality'' after Russia launched an overnight barrage of drone strikes across Ukraine, including some that struck Ukrainian energy facilities.

Russia responded by saying it had halted its targeting of Ukraine’s energy facilities and accused Kyiv of attacking Russian equipment near one of its pipelines.

‘‘Unfortunately, we see that for now there is no reciprocity on the part of the Kyiv regime," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

The White House described Tuesday’s call between Trump and Putin as the first step in a ‘’movement to peace'' that Washington hopes will include a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea and, eventually, a full and lasting end to the fighting.

But there was no indication that Putin is ready to back away from his conditions for a prospective peace deal, which are fiercely opposed by Kyiv.

Russia is holding the ceasefire proposal ‘hostage’

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said that Putin’s demands during the call with Trump would amount to ‘’Ukrainian capitulation.‘’

‘‘Putin is attempting to hold the temporary ceasefire proposal hostage in order to extract preemptive concessions ahead of formal negotiations to end the war,‘’ the ISW said in an analysis of readouts of the Trump-Putin call from the White House and Kremlin.

The White House also confirmed that technical experts from the U.S., Ukraine and Russia would gather in Saudi Arabia in the coming days to discuss implementing the partial ceasefire that Trump and Putin agreed to in their call this week. It was not immediately clear if the U.S. would meet together or separately with the Ukrainian and Russian officials. Waltz spoke with his Russian counterpart, Yuri Ushakov, on Wednesday to discuss the coming talks.

Ukraine and Russia trade accusations

Shortly after the call between Trump and Putin on Tuesday, air raid sirens sounded in Kyiv, followed by explosions as residents took shelter.

Despite efforts to repel the attack, several strikes hit civilian infrastructure, including two hospitals, a railway and more than 20 houses, Zelenskyy said. Russian drones were reported over Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Sumy, Chernihiv, Poltava, Kharkiv, Kirovohrad, Dnipropetrovsk, and Cherkasy regions.

The Russian Defense Ministry said its military had launched seven drones at power facilities related to the military-industrial complex in Ukraine’s southern Mykolaiv region, but that it shot them down after receiving Putin’s order to not hit energy infrastructure.

Moscow accused Ukraine of targeting its energy facility in the Krasnodar region bordering the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014, several hours after the Putin and Trump talks. The ministry said three drones targeted oil transfer equipment that feeds the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, causing a fire and leading one oil tank to lose pressure.

‘‘It is absolutely clear that we are talking about yet another provocation deliberately concocted by the Kyiv regime, aimed at derailing the peace initiatives of the U.S. president,‘’ the Russian Defense Ministry said.

Russia said its air defenses intercepted 57 Ukrainian drones over the Azov Sea and several Russian regions — the border provinces of Kursk and Bryansk and the nearby regions of Oryol and Tula.

Zelenskyy said that ‘’words of a ceasefire'' weren’t enough.

‘‘If the Russians don’t hit our facilities, we definitely won’t hit theirs,‘’ Zelenskyy said.

Meanwhile, the two combatants said Wednesday that they had each swapped 175 prisoners in one of the largest exchanges of the war.

Ukraine’s red line

Zelenskyy rejected Putin’s key condition that Western allies stop providing military aid and intelligence to Ukraine. He said doing so would endanger lives if citizens were blind to incoming air raids and lead to the continuation of the war.

‘‘I don’t think anybody should make any concessions in terms of helping Ukraine, but rather, assistance to Ukraine should be increased," Zelenskyy said. “This will be a signal that Ukraine is ready for any surprises from the Russians.‘’

Zelenskyy said one of the most difficult issues in future negotiations would be the issue of territorial concessions.

‘‘For us, the red line is the recognition of the Ukrainian temporarily occupied territories as Russian," he said. ‘’We will not go for it.‘’

___ Yehor Konovalov in Kyiv, Dasha Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia, Geir Moulson in Berlin, Aamer Madhani and Zeke Miller in Washington, and Brian Melley and Susie Blann in London contributed to this report.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine