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'To keep oil prices from rising' — Russian lawmaker questions Trump’s energy ceasefire claim

• 1 min read
'To keep oil prices from rising' — Russian lawmaker questions Trump’s energy ceasefire claim
Oil pumping units are seen in Russia's Republic of Tatarstan on July 14, 2025. (Stringer/Anadolu via Getty Images)

A senior member of Russia’s State Duma energy committee said he had no information about an energy ceasefire with Ukraine announced by U.S. President Donald Trump on Oct. 11, suggesting Trump could be trying to influence oil prices.

"We all know that Trump often says things to keep oil prices from rising," Igor Ananskikh, first deputy chair of the committee, told Russian outlet Ostorozhno Novosti. "I don’t know how closely this reflects reality."

Dmitry Novikov, first deputy chair of the Duma’s international affairs committee, said he had not attended the negotiations and referred the outlet to Trump’s press service.

Trump announced that an energy ceasefire was effective immediately and that both sides had agreed. President Volodymyr Zelensky said the announcement was news to him.

Russia struck Kharkiv’s CHP-5 power plant that day, Zelensky said. Ukraine’s Presidential Office confirmed that the attack occurred after Trump’s announcement.

“Just now, there was a strike on CHP-5 in Kharkiv — on Kharkiv’s energy infrastructure,” Zelensky said at around 8 p.m. local time.

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Olena Goncharova

Special Correspondent

Olena Goncharova is the Special Correspondent for the Kyiv Independent, where she has previously worked as a development manager and Canadian correspondent. She first joined the Kyiv Post, Ukraine's oldest English-language newspaper, as a staff writer in January 2012 and became the newspaper’s Canadian correspondent in June 2018. She is based in Edmonton, Alberta. Olena has a master’s degree in publishing and editing from the Institute of Journalism in Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv. Olena was a 2016 Alfred Friendly Press Partners fellow who worked for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for six months. The program is administered by the University of Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia.

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