Who really wins from Trump's proposed Russia-Ukraine energy truce?

"What is an energy truce? It doesn't exist," says Roman Pohorilyi, a military analyst and co-founder of the OSINT project DeepState, with some frustration. He appears to be right.

On the morning and afternoon of Sept. 15, Russian drones struck two gas stations in Kyiv, after earlier attacks had cut power to consumers in several Ukrainian regions, including Volyn Oblast, far from the front line. Ukraine's Defense Forces, meanwhile, struck an oil refinery in Syzran, in Russia's Samara Oblast. "Russia isn't stopping its strikes on our energy sector, ordinary logistics and critical infrastructure. And our responses to that are being felt," President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

Zelenskyy made those comments less than a day after U.S. President Donald Trump unexpectedly wrote on his Truth Social platform that Ukraine and Russia had agreed not to strike each other's energy facilities — supposedly very good news for the global fuel market, since, in Trump's telling, the Russia-Ukraine war has been driving up diesel prices.

The Ukrainian leader almost immediately confirmed that the United States had proposed a mutual halt to such strikes. He said Kyiv was ready to stop striking Russian energy facilities if Ukraine's partners could secure a "real willingness" on Russia's part not to attack Ukrainian energy infrastructure, critical infrastructure, and food supplies.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, for his part, called the potential energy truce "a very good idea" — but immediately added that "ensuring the safe operation of refineries and increasing oil-product output doesn't solve the world's problems." According to Peskov, the real issue is "the export of oil products," meaning Ukraine would need to stop attacking tankers and ports. And for global prices to actually fall, he suggested, some sanctions on Russia should also be lifted.

Based on these statements, all three parties to a potential truce see advantages in it for themselves. But who would actually benefit the most?

Elections, and more elections

"Who announced the energy truce? Donald Trump," Pohorilyi of DeepState said. "Donald Trump has said we'd get ballistic missiles, a Patriot license. Donald Trump has said we've reached a truce some 18,000 times already. These words don't mean anything."

Volodymyr Omelchenko, director of energy programs at the Razumkov Center think tank, likewise found no specifics in the White House chief's statements — the specifics, he added wryly, are "somewhere in the realm of Trump's own dreams." Given the recent strikes on gas stations in Kyiv, he said, it's premature to talk about any real agreement on a truce.

And the person most interested in an energy truce isn't Ukraine or Russia, but Trump himself, Omelchenko said.

"With such poor polling numbers for the Republican Party ahead of the [November] midterms, Trump wants to sell peace to his voters once again," Omelchenko said. "But that doesn't mean he's capable of, or will actually try to, deliver that peace."

Trump's proposal also came just before another election — Russia's State Duma elections, set for Sept. 18-20. That is not a coincidence, according to Volodymyr Ohryzko, Ukraine's former foreign minister, but further evidence that Trump is playing into Putin's hands.

"To position his United Russia party as at least somewhat credible, Putin can also say: look, I made a deal, I've secured Moscow's gasoline and diesel supply for 10 days," the diplomat explained. "And whatever happens elsewhere in so-called Russia doesn't concern him in the slightest."

Ohryzko is convinced that even if a truce is reached, it would last only until early November — until the U.S. midterms are over.

No guarantees, no deal

A truce would undoubtedly benefit Russia, experts told NV: Moscow would use it to replenish its budget and keep funding the war.

The Kremlin, Omelchenko explained, wants to tie Ukraine's hands through the Trump administration by getting Trump to bar Kyiv from striking Russian refineries. Meanwhile, Russia could keep attacking Ukrainian infrastructure while falsely claiming it was hitting military rather than energy targets.

"Without firm guarantees from the United States, clear criteria for which targets and facilities fall under the truce on both sides, and objective monitoring of compliance with those guarantees, there's nothing to even discuss," said the Razumkov Center's director of energy programs.

Only a lasting truce would actually benefit Ukraine, Ohryzko said — not a few days of quiet that Russia would use to repair its facilities.

Pohorilyi of DeepState, however, believes both Kyiv and Moscow could have a genuine interest in a real truce, since mutual strikes are currently causing damage on both sides of the front line and the state border.

A period of quiet, he said, could let Ukraine repair facilities, improve their protection, secure alternative energy sources, and build up reserves.

At the same time, the analyst stressed that Russia always manipulates negotiations by attaching additional demands — hand over territory, make further concessions.

While Ukrainian authorities use every opportunity to show they're ready to negotiate right now — a ceasefire, halting deep strikes, anything to stop the killing, with other issues to be worked out afterward — Russia has never done anything similar. The Kremlin refuses to halt hostilities even during negotiations. Pohorilyi explained that Moscow behaves this way because it believes it holds the stronger position: Russia genuinely has large numbers of Shahed drones and ballistic missiles, while Ukraine faces a shortage of air-defense missiles and struggles to protect civilian, commercial, and critical infrastructure alike.

Pohorilyi said Ukraine isn't simply asking for a truce — it's essentially saying: if you don't want a response in kind that hurts everyone, let's sit down at the table.

Ukraine does have leverage

A genuine energy truce becomes achievable once Ukraine's long-range weapons create a critical situation for the Russian economy, Omelchenko said.

"If Russian oil refining falls from its current, conservatively estimated 3.8 million barrels per day to 2.5 million barrels per day, Russia's economy will enter a state of cascading collapse, and it will simply have no choice but to end hostilities," he said.

By his estimate, if Ukraine carries out at least three to four intensive strikes per week on Russian refineries, that level of decline in Russian oil refining could be achieved by early 2027.

Omelchenko allows that the Kremlin could recognize where things are heading even sooner and agree to a full truce. "Not because they're being generous, but because they'll have no other choice," he said. "They need to be put in zugzwang with long-range weapons so that they have no option left but to end the war."

Still, experts agree there is currently no realistic path to a truce lasting any significant length of time.

"It's impossible to reach a concrete agreement with the Russians, because for them, legality and law simply aren't things that can or should guide behavior," Ohryzko said.

The former minister stressed that for Putin, any given agreement is attractive only as long as it serves his interests. The moment those interests disappear, so does the agreement.

"There's no illusion here — the moment it suits him, he'll cross out every agreement in a heartbeat and find a thousand and one excuses for doing so," the diplomat added. "Trusting what Putin does or says is a failure to respect yourself."

Ukraine and Russia will most likely simply continue fighting, Pohorilyi believes. That means Kyiv should focus on air defense, protecting critical infrastructure, and building the capacity to inflict real damage on Russia.

"To make the Russians actually suffer — because that's the only way to force them to the table for any real talks," the DeepState co-founder concluded.