Vladimir Putin has ordered Russia’s military to refrain from striking Ukrainian energy infrastructure for 30 days but stopped short of agreeing an unconditional ceasefire.

The Kremlin said the Russian president had “reacted positively” to Donald Trump’s suggestion to halt the attacks during a call between the leaders on Tuesday. It added that Putin “immediately gave the Russian military the corresponding order”.

But rather than agree to the US president’s proposal for an unconditional 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine, Putin highlighted a “series of significant issues” about enforcing such an agreement and “serious risks” concerning Kyiv’s compliance.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump described the call as “very good and productive, adding: “Many elements of a Contract for Peace were discussed . . . That process is now in full force and effect and we will, hopefully, for the sake of Humanity, get the job done.”

Readouts from the call offered no indication that Putin was willing to compromise on his maximalist goals for the war, which in effect amount to ending Ukraine’s existence as an independent state while rolling back most of Nato’s expansion east of the former “iron curtain”.

According to the Kremlin readout, Putin said he was ready to work with the US to end the war but insisted any agreement must “take into account the unconditional necessity to remove the initial reasons for the crisis and Russia’s legal security interests”.

The Kremlin said Putin stressed Russia’s “key condition to stop the conflict from escalating” and move towards a settlement would be a “total end to foreign military support and intelligence sharing with Kyiv”.

Last week, Kyiv signed up to Trump’s proposed 30-day truce after pressure from Washington, which had suspended military aid and intelligence sharing.

Trump on Sunday had also suggested that “land” and “power plants” would be divided between Kyiv and Moscow in any final peace settlement, a seeming reference to Ukrainian assets occupied by Russia.

The White House said the two leaders had “agreed this conflict needs to end with a lasting peace” and “stressed the need for improved bilateral relations between the United States and Russia”.

It added that they had “agreed that the movement to peace will begin with an energy and infrastructure ceasefire”, with “technical negotiations” to begin on implementing a “maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea” followed by talks on a “full ceasefire and permanent peace”.

The Kremlin said Putin had reacted “positively” to Trump’s proposal on Black Sea maritime security and added that Moscow and Washington would set up expert groups to work on paths to a ceasefire.

Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy, told Fox News’s Sean Hannity on Tuesday that talks with Russia would continue on Sunday in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, led by secretary of state Marco Rubio and national security adviser Mike Waltz.

“Up until recently, we really didn’t have consensus around these two aspects — the energy and infrastructure ceasefire and the Black Sea moratorium on firing — and today we got to that place,” said Witkoff. “I think it’s a relatively short distance to a full ceasefire from there.”

“The devil is in the details,” Witkoff added, “and we’ve got to figure out those details. Beyond that, we’ll move to a full ceasefire.”

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had floated the possibility of a truce on attacking energy targets in October, saying it could pave the way for broader peace talks.

Zelenskyy said on Tuesday that Kyiv would support the proposal to suspend strikes on energy infrastructure but added that the conditions Putin attached to a full truce showed his intention was to weaken Ukraine.

He noted Russia was preparing new offensives, pointing to what he said was a build-up of forces on the border with Ukraine’s northern Sumy region.

Zelenskyy later wrote on social media platform X that Russia was undertaking drone attacks on Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, including a hospital in Sumy.

“Only a real cessation of strikes on civilian infrastructure by Russia, as proof of its willingness to end this war, can bring peace closer,” said Zelenskyy.

Asked about the Trump-Putin call, a senior Ukrainian official involved in the peace negotiations said an energy infrastructure ceasefire was “the only realistic proposal because, ultimately, Putin wants war”.

The Kremlin said Putin and Trump had discussed a “broad spectrum of directions” where the US and Russia could co-operate, including “mutually beneficial partnerships in economics and energy”.

The leaders also discussed the Middle East, where they said they would make “joint efforts to stabilise the situation in crisis zones”, as well as global security, including “establishing co-operation” on nuclear non-proliferation, the Kremlin said.

Trump also agreed to Putin’s suggestion that Russia and the US host international ice hockey matches featuring players from both countries, the Kremlin added.

Tuesday’s call followed a conversation between Trump and Putin in February that launched the US president’s efforts to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.

Over the past month, Trump has put heavy pressure on Zelenskyy to make concessions and negotiate a settlement with Putin.

The US president has been criticised domestically and internationally for being far less demanding of his Russian counterpart, though he has threatened to impose additional sanctions on Russia if Putin fails to engage in peace talks.

Trump promised to end the war in Ukraine throughout his 2024 presidential election campaign, placing it at the top of his foreign policy plans for his second term.

President Trump on Tuesday called for the impeachment of the judge who ordered a temporary halt to the deportation of alleged Venezuelan gang members.

Without naming James Boasberg, the chief judge of the district court of Washington, D.C., Trump said, “This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!” He also called Boasberg a “Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama.”

Boasberg on Saturday halted Trump’s deportation order for two weeks after the president, in a highly controversial move, used the 1798 Enemy Aliens Act, a law not used since World War II, to deport the alleged gang members.

Reacting to the president’s social media post, Chief Justice John Roberts issued a written statement of his own: “For more than two centuries it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreements concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”

Boasberg is known as a highly respected judge and former prosecutor who was previously appointed by Roberts to serve on the super-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which reviews federal government applications to conduct foreign intelligence surveillance, particularly in the United States. He has long ties with conservatives and liberals alike, having shared a house with Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh at Yale Law School.

The Trump-inspired furor is only the latest in many contretemps between the administration and federal district court judges who are presiding over lawsuits seeking to block the Trump administration’s actions.

As of Tuesday, 127 such lawsuits have been filed against the administration since Trump took office, according to a database maintained at New York University. The cases challenge an enormous range of subjects — from the president’s national security powers to the firing of tens of thousands of federal employees at the Pentagon, the Department of Justice, and agencies created by Congress that are supposed to be independent.

Here is an abbreviated summary of the pending Trump legal cases.

National security cases

The “national security” cases involve the area where the president has the most power.

Most prominently, last Friday Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport several hundred alleged Tren de Aragua gang members from Venezuela — as well as alleged members of the Salvadoran gang Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13 — by claiming they were part of an illegal invasion. The statute, however, has only been invoked during three periods in American history: The War of 1812, World War I and World War II.

Judge Boasberg on Saturday ordered the administration not to proceed with the deportations for two weeks, but the administration did it anyway. This prompted Boasberg to order the planes that were in the air to turn back, which the administration did not do. The standoff could lead to what many legal experts predict will be a constitutional crisis, a hypothetical (or seemingly, now reality) in which the Trump administration refuses to abide by court orders issued by federal judges.

The Trump administration, however, may be on shaky ground in this case because, according to legal scholars, the Alien Enemies Act was meant to and is written to deal with wartime emergencies only. In addition, even people who should be deported are guaranteed due process under the Constitution, and it is not clear that all the people being deported have had a final hearing. The president has likely picked this battle because it’s provocative, and immigration is an issue that he ran — and won — on.

Trump also ordered the detention and deportation of Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil for his role in the school’s student-led protests last spring. Khalil is a lawful permanent resident in the United States who is of Palestinian descent. Days after Khalil was taken into custody, immigration officials sent Rasha Alawieh, a doctor who was legally working in the U.S., back to Lebanon, citing her alleged support for Hezbollah.

The administration has also made an effort, so far unsuccessful, to ban automatic citizenship for some people born in the United States. This is a right pretty explicitly guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution for all people born or naturalized in the U.S.

Elon Musk + cases

These cases are what former ambassador Norman Eisen, who is shepherding a lot of the lawsuits, calls “core rule of law” cases.

Many cases involving Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, allege that Musk, who was hired by the president as a special government employee, may not take actions that Congress has not authorized, such as halting funding to federal agencies. Other cases cast doubt on DOGE’s ability to access to sensitive federal records, which it has been doing in agencies like the IRS and the Social Security Administration.

Also in this category are cases challenging efforts by the Trump administration to undo established labor agreements.

Other challenges seek to prevent the administration from gutting agencies and Cabinet departments by summarily firing tens of thousands of federal employees.

Trump’s attacks on the ‘deep state’

Related, but somewhat different are cases concerning Trump’s attacks on the control of federal agencies. For instance, the president is trying to fire a member of the National Labor Relations board who has three years left on her five-year term. The U.S. Supreme Court in 1935 said the president could only fire agency commissioners for cause, meaning misconduct of some kind. The court’s current conservative supermajority, however, has been eating away at the outer edges of that precedent, so the Trump administration has a decent chance of prevailing when and if these cases get to the Supreme Court.

First Amendment challenges

These are cases that concern the administration’s efforts to make life much more difficult for lawyers who bring cases against the administration, and news organizations that cover them.

The Trump administration revoked the security clearance for the law firm Perkins Coie, known for representing Hillary Clinton and other prominent Democrats. Without security clearances, the firm would be unable to represent its clients as effectively, which could hurt its business.

Trump signed a similar executive order limiting federal contractors’ and the government’s ability to retain Paul Weiss, a major New York law firm, citing the firm’s connection to one of its former lawyers who was involved in leading an investigation into Trump.

Similarly, Trump revoked security clearances for lawyers at Covington & Burling, which represented former special counsel Jack Smith, who led the federal government’s investigation into Trump after the 2020 election. In the same memorandum, Trump ordered the termination of existing contracts between Covington and the federal government.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has targeted 20 major law firms, including Perkins Coie, in an investigation into their DEI practices, though this investigation has not yet been challenged in court.

The Associated Press was also barred from accessing the Oval Office or Air Force One for failing to change its style guide to comply with a Trump executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. After releasing a statement raising alarm bells that “the Trump administration would punish AP for its independent journalism,” the AP sued the administration to regain access.