WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump on Thursday praised Russian dictator Vladimir Putin for agreeing to his request to pause his attacks on Ukraine during a bitter cold snap there, even as Ukrainians and outside observers report that lethal attacks on civilians continue apace.
“I personally asked President Putin not to fire on Kyiv and the cities and towns for a week during this extra ― it’s not just like cold, it’s extraordinary cold, record-setting cold over there too, they’re having the same,” Trump said at a photo opportunity at the White House before his Cabinet meeting. “It’s a big ― it’s a big pile of bad weather, the worst, but it was really ― they said they’ve never experienced cold like that, and I personally asked President Putin not to fire into Kyiv and the various towns for a week, and he agreed to do that. And I have to tell you, it was very nice. People said, ‘Don’t waste the call, you’re not going to get that.’ And he did it, and we’re very happy that they did it.”
It was unclear what Trump meant, specifically, and the White House did not provide any further details. Trump often brags about his relationship with Putin, but has had little success in persuading the Russian leader to give up his four-year-old invasion of Ukraine, and it was uncertain Thursday whether the purported pause was real.
Trump’s envoys met with Ukrainian and Russian representatives last weekend in Abu Dhabi to negotiate an end to the war caused by Russia’s 2022 invasion of its neighbor, but a Russian promise to pause its attacks was not mentioned prior to Thursday. Similarly, there has been no disclosure of a recent phone call between Trump and Putin by either side.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy nevertheless took the opportunity to thank Trump publicly two hours later.
“Power supply is a foundation of life. We value the efforts of our partners to help us protect lives. Thank you, President Trump!” Zelenskyy wrote on social media. “Our teams discussed this in the United Arab Emirates. We expect the agreements to be implemented. De-escalation steps contribute to real progress toward ending the war.”
It is also unclear why, if Russia agreed to halt its attacks four days ago, it has not yet done so.
A Ukrainian official who spoke on condition of anonymity told HuffPost on Thursday afternoon the country would know soon enough if Trump had indeed gotten Putin to pause his attacks: “We will see this night.”
Just 24 hours earlier, Zelenskyy was reporting on yet another attack on a residential area, which came days after Putin attacked a passenger train with multiple drones.
“There was a direct hit by a Russian drone on a residential building in Bilohorodka, two people were killed. My condolences to the families and loved ones. A four-year-old child was successfully rescued. Assistance is being provided to all those affected by this strike,” Zelenskyy wrote on Wednesday.
Hours later, he warned that Putin was preparing to attack again: “The Russians are preparing a new massive strike – our intelligence indicates this. The United States, Europe, and all our partners have to understand how this discredits diplomatic talks. Every single Russian strike does.”
According to both Ukrainian and outside observers, Russia has attacked Ukraine every single night this month. Tracking data kept by the Institute for the Study of War shows that Russia has attacked Ukraine with drones, occasionally also with ballistic missiles, every single day since a two-day ceasefire in May 2025. On Thursday, the day of Trump’s claim, Russia attacked using 105 drones.
An American researcher in Kyiv, who was not authorized to speak publicly for the organization and spoke on condition of anonymity, has not noticed any let-up thus far: “Sounds to me like Trump is trying to flex his ‘deal-making’ muscles but to no avail… Would be surprised if Putin felt so endeared to care for the people in the cold in Ukraine.”
Temperatures in Ukraine have been below freezing for weeks and are expected to drop below zero degrees Fahrenheit in the coming days.
“Trump keeps begging Putin to stop humiliating him,” said Robert Kagan, a Brookings Institution analyst who served in the State Department under Ronald Reagan. “But I think Putin is humiliating him deliberately to prove to everyone, especially Europe, that even ‘Mr. Tough Guy American’ can’t or won’t do anything to help them.”
Trump has been an open admirer of Putin for decades and, before becoming president, had tried to build one of his branded buildings in Moscow. In 2013, he posted on social media wondering if Putin would “become my new best friend” because Trump was holding a beauty pageant there.
In 2016, Putin helped Trump win the presidency — help that Trump willingly accepted even though he knew it was coming from Russia — and Trump has taken pro-Putin stances and repeated Russian talking points ever since. A few months ago, he afforded moral equivalence to Putin’s attacks on Ukrainian civilians and Ukraine’s retaliatory strikes against Russia’s oil industry infrastructure. Recently, Trump even hung a large photo in the West Wing of himself and Putin at an August meeting he arranged in Alaska.
Trump’s White House on Thursday defended the display of the photo.
“This is one of many accomplishments that President Trump chooses to feature at the White House, where photographs are rotated frequently to highlight presidential travel,” said spokeswoman Anna Kelly.
Most analysts, however, considered the Alaska meeting a failure. Trump had said he would be upset if Putin did not agree to a ceasefire at the summit. It ended a few hours after it started and produced no ceasefire.
Jim Townsend, an analyst with the Center for a New American Security with experience at both the Pentagon and NATO, said he remains unconvinced that Putin has agreed to anything.
“I guess we are at a period now where we can’t even take the president at his word. I’ve heard nothing from the Kremlin. You’d think they’d be making hay about their humanitarian gesture,” he said. “Until we get some kind of verification, this is just noise.”