Ukraine distrusts Trump's ceasefire announcement as extreme cold and bombings continue

Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky hopes that the Russian president will keep his promise to Donald Trump to respect a week without bombing Ukraine, which is suffering sub-zero temperatures with its energy facilities destroyed by Russian attacks. 

From Kiev and Kharkiv, journalist and Atalayar contributor María Senovilla gauges the mood of a country that does not trust the promises of a truce, while the war continues to mark everyday life. 

Donald Trump announced a ceasefire in Ukraine while the second round of negotiations takes place, and although this has been welcomed at the political level, on the streets of Ukraine, is there trust or mistrust? What do people think? 

Donald Trump announced that he had convinced Putin to declare this ceasefire while the second round of three-way peace negotiations were taking place, and boasted that he had personally asked Putin to stop bombing Kyiv and other cities for a week, saying that the Russian president had been very nice to him and had agreed. 

And although European political leaders, such as German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, have been quick to applaud this truce, here in Ukraine there is mistrust on the streets. To begin with, because this week there were reports of attacks near the Zaporizhzhia front line in which Russia allegedly used 100 drones and a missile, according to several military brigades operating in the area. But that is not the most worrying thing. What is most concerning to citizens right now is that temperatures of -30 degrees Celsius are expected over the next few days, and people believe that Russia will not miss this opportunity to bomb the electrical infrastructure and heating plants that it has been mercilessly attacking since 9 January and which are on the verge of total blackout. 

This is precisely Putin's strategy: to cut off power to the whole of Ukraine in the midst of the worst polar cold snap in decades. The population believes that the Russian president will not miss this opportunity to attack the electricity and heating network again when temperatures reach their lowest point, which is forecast to be -30 degrees Celsius during the week. 

For the time being, in cities as far from the front line as Lviv, 70 kilometres from the Polish border, emergency preparedness protocols have already been activated. The authorities have asked residents to stock up on water, food and medicine and, above all, to locate the nearest shelters, because a new massive Russian attack on the power grid could trigger a humanitarian crisis exacerbated by this unprecedented extreme cold in Ukraine. 

Do Ukrainians have reason to be wary, Maria? Because over the last week, Russia has intensified its attacks on Ukrainian cities and civilian targets, even bombing a passenger train. 

It has been a dark week for the civilian population of Ukraine, who no longer feel safe anywhere in the country. While that first round of three-way negotiations between Russia, Ukraine and the United Arab Emirates was taking place in the United Arab Emirates, Putin was stepping up the pace with that terrible bombing campaign against cities such as Odessa, Krivói Rog, President Zelensky's city, Dnipro, Kharkiv and, of course, Kiev, here in the capital. 

Attacks were reported from all over. You were watching the news and several times a day the alarm would sound, warning of attacks and bombings in any of these cities. Images of Shahed drones hitting residential buildings were mixed with the roar of missiles. 

In between, news came in of new attacks on the electrical infrastructure. The shelters, the invincibility points that act as thermal refuges, were full of people. Once again, they went down to sleep in the underground stations in these sub-zero temperatures. 

It has been five or six days since that round of negotiations began until yesterday, during which time the civilian population has been terrorised and under fire in all parts of the country, even those furthest from the front line. In Kiev alone, Russia launched 1,700 drones and 69 missiles. But in Kharkiv, it was even worse. There were 25 bombings recorded over the weekend alone, and more than 100 missiles were launched against the city of Kharkiv and the entire region. 

And the most shocking attack, as you mentioned a moment ago, came on Tuesday this week when Russia bombed a passenger train with 292 people on board. The attack was carried out with a swarm of Shahed drones. One of them damaged the locomotive and the train tracks, but another one hit a carriage head-on. 

The images that several passengers rushed to record with their mobile phones as they evacuated the carriages that had not been attacked were truly terrifying. There were many women, mothers with small children, elderly people. There was the whole spectrum of people you can imagine travelling on a passenger train. 

The train was engulfed in flames, and you could hear screams and cries. Furthermore, it was a train that connected the west of the country to the Kharkiv region, meaning it crossed the whole of Ukraine from east to west and carried many people fleeing the conflict on the eastern front and many people who had taken refuge in western Ukraine. These trains are precisely the ones that transport people who are either fleeing from towns near the front line or who are visiting family members who may already be located in other places in the west. 

So far, five deaths have been reported, but four passengers are missing and the remains found both in the bombed carriage and around the tracks are still being analysed. 

Maria, while there is talk of negotiations, the fighting continues. 

That's right. And I took advantage of the days when the first round of negotiations were taking place to travel to Kharkiv. That's why I've told you in such detail about the daily attacks there. 

You use one of those trains, don't you? 

I use those trains. What's more, that particular train travelling south from Kharkiv was the one that used to go to Kramatorsk. I've lost count of the number of times I've taken that train. Now it no longer goes to Donbas precisely because of the drone attacks, and the attack took place at the last stop in the Kharkiv region, in Barbincove. 

But it is that train that connects the east of the country with the west and transports civilians every day. In Kharkiv, during those days of negotiations, the attacks were constant, day and night, mid-morning, mid-afternoon. You could hear the missiles falling, the drones striking. 

What I wanted to know was what the situation was like on the front line, which is close to the city, what the prospects were, what life was like, what was being done, while these three-way peace negotiations were getting underway with the hope that the war would come to an end in 2026. 

What I found, after being taken to several infantry training sessions, was that they are preparing more intensely than before, because they doubt that these negotiations will be successful, especially since the main stumbling block in the negotiations is Ukraine's territorial integrity. Russia is now demanding not only the territories it has occupied militarily, but also wants the remaining part of Donbass, north of Donetsk, which it has not managed to conquer by force of arms, to be handed over to it. 

And obviously, not even President Zelensky has the power to do that, because the Ukrainian constitution says that it cannot be done, that the territorial integrity of Ukraine is not in the hands of the current president. Faced with this obstacle and the prospect that the negotiations will not come to fruition, what the Ukrainians are doing is intensifying their infantry training. I was at one that was taking place at -17 degrees Celsius, and I asked them, why don't you wait until the temperature is a little better these days, since it's so cold? The answer was that, even though it is cold, the war does not stop, and that it is also important for these infantry soldiers to train in these extreme cold conditions, which are expected to continue over the coming weeks, because combat conditions change drastically and they have to be prepared. 

And what do they have to be prepared for? For the build-up of troops that Russia is placing mainly on the eastern front around Kupiansk, the Oshkil region, the Iziún area, and also in the Pokrovsk area, the Donbass front, which has seen continuous action throughout these weeks, even though there have been peace negotiations in between. 

And what Ukrainian troops are preparing for right now is a possible Russian advance, a possible massive assault across the entire eastern front line, which is currently causing significant concern among officers.