Trump defends Russia sanctions pause as Ukraine launches drone attack

President Donald Trump said Sunday he was keeping Russia at the negotiating table by suspending planned U.S. sanctions, even as Ukraine launched more than 1,000 drones at Russia and both countries reported new strikes.

“I am in the process of negotiating Peace in the war between Russia and Ukraine,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. He said he did not want to “do anything that will drive, foolishly, Russia away from the bargaining table” and could impose the restrictions later.

Trump signed an order Friday night blocking sanctions that were due to take effect Sunday. Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the move as a 60-day pause to assess their potential effect on the U.S. and global economies, the BBC reported. Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev called the order “an important and truly historic moment” and said the sanctions would have caused serious economic damage.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that easing sanctions would strengthen Russia’s war effort. Siding with Russian President Vladimir Putin would be a “historic mistake” for Washington, he told NBC News. “We can’t compare me and Putin. He’s aggressor. He occupied us,” Zelenskyy said.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces destroyed 1,015 Ukrainian drones over 15 Russian regions, Russian-annexed Crimea and the Black Sea. In St. Petersburg, the attack set fires at the Petersburg Oil Terminal and the Ruchi oil depot, local Gov. Alexander Beglov said. At least one person was killed and five were wounded. Russian retailer Ozon and technology company VK also confirmed that a logistics center and a data center, respectively, were targeted.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told the Russian state news agency Tass that Kyiv was “resisting” Moscow’s invasion but could not “change the current course of events.” In Ukraine, local officials said a woman was killed and at least two people, including a 6-year-old girl, were wounded in two Russian attacks on Zaporizhzhia.

Trump renewed his criticism of Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil infrastructure, accusing Zelenskyy of targeting “Diesel Refineries in Russia” and saying he “doesn’t want to end this war, and probably never did.” He also said Russia was doing little to help Iran and that he wanted to keep it that way. Zelenskyy has repeatedly said he wants the fighting to end but believes Putin does not want peace.

Zelenskyy said Sunday that Russia had violated what he called Trump’s “energy ceasefire” 76 times. Overnight strikes hit energy facilities in four Ukrainian regions and left tens of thousands of families without power, he said. The Ukrainian government had initially said it was observing the ceasefire.

The two leaders also offered differing accounts of U.S.-Ukraine intelligence sharing. Zelenskyy told NBC it had resumed after being “blocked for some period of time.” Trump has denied that the United States stopped sharing defense intelligence, according to the BBC.

Zelenskyy said he had spoken Sunday with U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner about an Oct. 9 meeting between U.S. and Ukrainian negotiators in Miami and the next diplomatic steps.