“Energy truce” and the May deadline What’s really being prepared for Ukraine?

I will begin this article on the full-scale Russian–Ukrainian war—which has now been ongoing for nearly four years—with a brief digression.

As is well known, elections to the U.S. House of Representatives are scheduled for November 3, 2026 as part of the midterm elections taking place during President Donald Trump’s second, non-consecutive term. Voters will elect representatives from all 435 congressional districts across the 50 states, as well as five of the six non-voting delegates representing the District of Columbia and U.S. territories. On the same day, a range of federal, regional, and local elections will also be held, including elections to the U.S. Senate. The newly elected lawmakers will form the 120th United States Congress. This is the first point to note.

The second point concerns recent political developments in the United States. In a snap U.S. Senate election in Texas—a state traditionally considered a Republican stronghold—the Democratic candidate, trade union leader and U.S. Air Force veteran Taylor Rehmet, defeated his opponent by a margin of 14 percentage points. His rival, Leigh Wambsganss, had been openly backed by the incumbent president. The Democratic Party described the outcome as further evidence that voters are increasingly turning away from Republican candidates and their policy agenda.

The reader may quite logically ask: “How is all this connected to the Russian–Ukrainian war?” The answer is: directly so. During his election campaign and after his victory, Donald Trump repeatedly promised to bring this confrontation to an end. Accordingly, if he fails to achieve this goal before the active phase of the campaign for the House of Representatives begins, the Republicans may suffer a fiasco, as the Democrats will actively play this very card.

At the same time, according to expert assessments, the approximate final deadline for ending the war—so that Trump can claim this achievement as a political success—is May 15. This date, in particular, was previously voiced by Ukrainian MP Oleksii Honcharenko. It is precisely from this calculation that any statements now coming from Moscow and Kyiv should be assessed, including the message published by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Telegram.

“I met with our negotiating team ahead of the new round of trilateral talks. We expect the meetings to take place in the coming days, as early as this Wednesday and Thursday. Nearly all members of the negotiating team attended today’s meeting, namely Rustem Umerov, Kyrylo Budanov, Sergiy Kyslytsya, Andrii Hnatov, and Oleksandr Bevz. Davyd Arakhamiia will also participate in the negotiations. I approved frameworks for the talks and set specific tasks. 

The Ukrainian delegation will also hold bilateral meetings with the American side. Ukraine is ready for real steps. We believe it is realistic to achieve a dignified and lasting peace. We consider the bilateral security guarantees document with the United States to be complete, and we anticipate further substantive work on documents related to recovery and economic development.

We also anticipate that the American side will remain decisive in ensuring the necessary conditions for dialogue. The de-escalation measures that went into effect on the night of last Thursday to Friday are helping to build public trust in the negotiation process and its possible outcome. The war needs to be ended,” wrote the President of Ukraine.

We assume that by the term “de-escalation measures,” Zelenskyy was referring to the “energy truce.” Notably, Donald Trump was the first to announce this—both Kyiv and Moscow initially denied or kept quiet about it. However, albeit with some friction, this truce is functioning, and any attempts to cast doubt on it provoke displeasure in the White House. As a result, the situation sometimes verges on the absurd. For example, yesterday the Ukrainian Ministry of Energy reported that Russia had resumed strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, leading to power outages for consumers in Kharkiv, Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, and Cherkasy regions.

Yet shortly afterwards, Zelenskyy significantly softened his statement: “Over the past 24 hours, there were new Russian attacks on energy facilities in frontline and border communities. At the same time, there were no targeted strikes by Russian missiles or ‘shaheds’ against energy infrastructure.” Such a clarification is only possible if Washington indicated that it was undesirable for the “energy truce” to be questioned. Judging by the situation, it seems likely that the truce will remain in effect until the end of the week, when severe cold snaps will subside in both Russia and Ukraine.

And it is quite possible that by that time the parties will bring their positions even closer regarding a freeze of the Russian–Ukrainian war. In our view, this is precisely why Zelensky says the war needs to end without specifying the conditions under which this should happen—yesterday, that task was effectively taken up by the Governor of Mykolaiv Oblast, Vitalii Kim, who in an interview with the British publication The Independent called for a peace agreement.

“For me personally, victory is our borders from 1991 where people are happy and not killed, but everybody is very tired. So for the Ukrainian people, I think the victory is just stopping the war and some guarantees of security for the future, for our children to have the life that we had before the invasion,” said the head of Mykolaiv Oblast, noting also that Kyiv “does not have time,” and Ukraine is “worn out” by the war.

“The Russian economy is suffering also, and in my opinion, they have a couple of years to start decreasing publicly. I think that Russia knows it, but still, they have time, and Ukraine does not have time. We are exhausted and first, it's not about weapons, it's not about missiles, it's about people. We've only 40 million people and everybody is exhausted. Our soldiers cannot fight for four to 10 years,” Kim added.

If we look closely at his words, in essence, he revealed how Ukrainian society will be “sold” the idea of freezing the conflict under the guise of “victory”—the argument being that peace is more valuable than territory. Zelenskyy himself cannot openly admit this yet, nor does he want to, since everyone still remembers his statements about “restoring the 1991 borders” and the fact that Ukraine had several opportunities to agree to a conflict freeze at earlier stages of the war and on more favourable terms.

As a result, we are now set to “observe” how Ukraine’s leadership promotes a freeze of the conflict to the public, as Kim indicated—something he would never have said so publicly without coordination with the authorities. In such efforts, everything will be involved: from complaints about insufficient firmness and support from Kyiv’s European allies, including discussions about shortages of weapons and personnel, to the possible holding of a referendum on ending the war, the results of which, thanks to “correct counting,” would confirm that the majority of Ukrainians are “in favour.”

This may be done so that Zelenskyy can run for the presidency again. Moreover, he has already stated that he does not rule out such a scenario. Remaining in power is extremely important for him in order to avoid accountability for the obvious failure in preparing for the war with Russia and the shocking scale of corruption during it, which cost hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian lives, while the president’s closest circle enriched themselves extraordinarily in the process.