By Dmitry Antonov
Moscow (Reuters) -Arussia reserves the right to withdraw from a moratorium to stop the United States in Moscow and kyiv hitting the other energy infrastructure if Ukraine continues to attack such targets, the Kremlin warned on Friday.
The United States announced separate agreements on Tuesday with Ukraine and Russia to suspend its strikes against the other energy targets of the other-a potential springboard that Washington hopes will lead to a complete ceasefire and peace talks to end the three-year war.
But Russia and Ukraine earlier have accused each other of attacking a Russian gas counting station in the western Russia region, an important installation via which Moscow used to pump its gas to Europe by pipeline until the end of last year.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, who previously said that the idea that Russia would attack his own energy infrastructure was absurd, suggested that Moscow’s patience with the moratorium would run out.
“Of course, the Russian team reserves the right, in the event that the kyiv regime failed to observe this moratorium, so as not to observe it either,” he told journalists.
“It would be illogical for us to comply and every night, attempts to strike our energy infrastructure facilities.”
But for the moment, Peskov has said that Russia would continue to respect the moratorium, an agreement that Ukraine in turn accused Moscow to flout.
President Vladimir Putin suggested that Ukraine could be placed in a form of temporary administration to allow new elections to take place in order to reach a regulation in war, an idea that Kyiv considers scandalous.
Peskov said Putin had not discussed the idea with US President Donald Trump in previous telephone conversations that the Kremlin had announced. Putin had launched the idea now because Russia feared that the nationalist armed forces in Ukraine are gaining strength, he said.
“No, there was no discussion on this subject; this is the point of view of the President of the Russian Federation, which is based on irrefutable facts linked to the real status quo that we now have in Ukraine,” said Peskov.
(Report by Dmitry Antonov Writing by Maxim Rodionoveding by Andrew Osborn)
