Zelensky, Trump Push Energy Truce: State Of Play
Volodymyr Zelensky met President Trump on the sidelines of the United Nations in New York and declared Ukraine ready for an energy ceasefire that would halt the drone war on Russian refineries and Ukrainian power plants alike. The offer landed on the same table where Trump has staked his claim to end the war, and it put the next move on Moscow.
Ukraine is offering to stop the strikes that have grounded flights over Moscow and driven up Russia’s diesel prices. If Russia refuses, the world sees which side wants the killing to continue, and the case for squeezing Putin harder gets stronger.
What happened
The two met in New York. Zelensky and Trump held their first in-person meeting since July on the sidelines of the 81st U.N. General Assembly on September 22, a roughly 40-minute session focused on ending the war.
Kyiv put the offer on record. Zelensky said Ukraine is ready for “any kind of format of energy ceasefire,” a mutual halt to strikes on power and fuel infrastructure, while adding, “I don’t know the Russian position.”
He asked for a face-to-face with Putin. Zelensky called for a trilateral meeting with Putin and Trump, saying he is ready to sit down “any time when all sides are ready.”
The battlefield behind the offer
- Russia’s strikes killed civilians. Overnight attacks on September 21 killed at least 6 people and wounded 38 across Ukraine, hitting a shopping mall and an educational building in Zaporizhzhia.
- Ukraine keeps hitting the refineries. Kyiv launched roughly a thousand drones over the weekend, striking the Kuibyshev oil refinery in Samara and a second plant in Bashkortostan, part of the campaign draining the fuel that funds Russia’s war.
- Trump wants the strikes to stop. Trump publicly worried that Ukraine’s refinery strikes were driving up the price of diesel, and framed the meeting around ending the war, saying, “I think it’s going to happen.”
In Their Own Words
“We’re going to talk about solutions for ending the war. I think it’s going to happen.” President Trump, before the meeting.
What The Other Side Is Doing & How To Neutralize It
The Kremlin is the one blocking a durable peace: spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the aerial truce, saying Kyiv is not offering a settlement that aligns with Russian interests, while Moscow still demands Ukraine surrender the entire Donbas and abandon NATO. The conservative counter is already law. Trump signed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act on September 18, arming Washington with secondary tariffs of up to 500 percent on nations that keep buying Russian oil, gas, and uranium, a lever to raise the cost of Putin’s refusal until he comes to the table.
-The Editors
National Security · Upstream of the Swamp · September 23, 2026
