MOSCOW: Russia reserves the right to withdraw from a US-brokered moratorium on Moscow and Kyiv striking each other’s energy infrastructure if Ukraine continues to attack such targets, the Kremlin warned on Friday.
The United States announced separate agreements with Ukraine and Russia on Tuesday to pause their strikes against each other’s energy targets — a potential stepping stone that Washington hopes will lead to a full ceasefire and peace talks to bring a definitive end to the three-year war.
But Russia and Ukraine earlier on Friday accused each other of attacking a Russian gas metering station in Russia’s western Kursk region, an important facility via which Moscow used to pump its gas to Europe by pipeline until the end of last year.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who has previously said the idea that Russia would attack its own energy infrastructure is absurd, suggested Moscow’s patience with the moratorium was running out.
“Of course, the Russian side reserves the right, in the event that the Kyiv regime fails to observe this moratorium, not to observe it either,” he told reporters.
“It would be illogical for us to comply and every night face attempts to strike at our energy infrastructure facilities.”
But for now, Peskov said Russia would continue to respect the moratorium, a deal that Ukraine in turn has accused Moscow of flouting.
President Vladimir Putin has suggested that Ukraine could be placed under a form of temporary administration to allow for new elections to be held with the aim of reaching a settlement in the war, an idea Kyiv considers to be outrageous.
Peskov said that Putin had not discussed the idea with US President Donald Trump in previous phone conversations which the Kremlin had announced. Putin had floated the idea now because Russia was worried that armed nationalist forces in Ukraine were gaining strength, he said.
“No, there have been no discussions on this topic; this is the point of view of the president of the Russian Federation, which is based on irrefutable facts related to the real status quo that we now have in Ukraine,” Peskov said.
Russia earlier Friday said it retook a border village from Ukraine in its Kursk region, where Moscow has this month reclaimed much of the territory that Kyiv held on to since last summer.
Ukraine launched a ground assault into the Russian border region in August, capturing large swathes of territory including the town of Sudzha, but over the past three weeks Moscow has taken much of it back.
Russia’s defense ministry said its troops had taken control of the village of Gogolevka, which lies close to the Ukrainian border and west of the town of Sudzha, which Moscow claimed back control of earlier in March.
