Russia Says Ukraine ’Derailing’ Putin-Trump Energy Truce Deal by Attacking Oil Depot

By Staff, Agencies

Russia says Ukraine has launched a “deliberate” attack on an oil depot in the country in an attempt to sabotage an agreement reached between Washington and Moscow.

Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed Tuesday to a proposal by US President Donald Trump for Moscow and Kiev to stop attacks on each other's energy infrastructure for 30 days.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also expressed his support for the peace initiative.

But on Wednesday, the Russian defense ministry said that Kiev “launched a deliberate attack using three fixed-wing UAVs on an energy facility in the village of Kavkazskaya,” in southern Russia.

The facility, it said, is used to transfer oil from rail tankers into the pipeline system operated by the Caspian Pipeline Consortium.

The drone attack caused a fuel tank to rupture and a fire to break out across 1,700 square meters, it said.

"It is completely obvious that this is another specially prepared provocation by the Kiev regime aimed at derailing peace initiatives of the US president.”

In a separate statement, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that so far there has been “no reciprocity on the part of the Kiev regime.”

“There were attempts to strike our energy infrastructure,” he said. “These attacks are countering our common (Russian-US) efforts.”

Later on Wednesday, Kiev accused Russia of attacking Ukraine's energy facilities.

Peskov, however, said that President Putin "immediately" gave the command to stop energy attacks on Ukraine after his call with Trump.

According to Peskov, seven Russian drones were "in the air" to be used on Ukrainian energy infrastructure but they were neutralized by Russia’s air defense forces.