Even Among Enemies: What the Church Asks of a Truce Only One Side Kept

On Sunday, President Trump announced an “energy ceasefire” between Russia and Ukraine in a post on Truth Social. By Thursday, President Zelenskyy had told the Financial Times, “We’re done,” and drones had set a refinery burning southeast of Moscow. Most of the reaction has been about who is to blame for the ceasefire’s failure. The Church puts an older question to all three governments first: what makes a truce binding, and what do the parties owe each other once one exists that truce?

The News Story

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday that Kyiv is no longer bound by the “energy ceasefire” President Donald Trump announced five days earlier. Within hours, Russian officials reported that a drone attack had set fire to an oil refinery in the Ryazan region southeast of Moscow.¹

“The block [on attacking refineries] is out. We’re done,” Zelenskyy told the Financial Times in an interview published October 15.²

Trump announced the truce on Sunday, October 11, in a Truth Social post: “Effective immediately, there is an ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine.” A White House official told Axios the arrangement covered strikes on oil refineries by both sides, with a possible second deal on power plants and grids to follow. Moscow never confirmed it had accepted. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on October 12 that “contacts are ongoing” and Russia had nothing to say yet. Zelenskyy said the announcement “was news for me,” and a Ukrainian official told Axios that a refinery-for-refinery swap was lopsided, since Ukraine has one partly working refinery and Russia runs a large network.³

Kyiv paused its refinery strikes. Russia kept up missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian energy sites, including a power plant in Kyiv and a thermal plant in Kharkiv hit shortly after Trump’s post, according to Ukrainian officials. Reuters reported the attacks left hundreds of thousands of people without power. On October 15, Russia carried out the largest attack of the war on Ukraine’s Kirovohrad region, killing 3 people and wounding 6, Reuters reported.⁴

Ryazan Governor Pavel Malkov wrote on Telegram that a “massive drone attack” caused a fire at a refinery and damaged a warehouse and several vehicles at another site. Kyiv did not immediately confirm the strike. The Ryazan refinery, one of Russia’s largest, handled nearly 5% of the country’s refining in 2024, according to Reuters. Ukraine separately said it damaged 6 Russian military aircraft in an overnight strike on the Borisoglebsk airfield in Voronezh.⁵

The truce came amid a widening dispute between Kyiv and Washington. On October 9, after a call with Vladimir Putin, Trump said Russia would supply diesel to U.S. and global markets, and he eased sanctions on Russian diesel. Zelenskyy called that a “simple victory” for Russia. On October 10, Trump said Ukrainians should get “a new leader who can make a deal.” Trump has blamed Ukrainian refinery strikes for higher diesel prices; Zelenskyy has said those prices depend on the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz.⁶

Zelenskyy told the Financial Times that U.S. officials warned Ukrainian commanders that Washington would “block intelligence” if the strikes continued. Ukrainian officials told Reuters they had not received the usual Western warnings of incoming Russian missiles for several days. Trump denied withholding intelligence. Ukraine’s defense ministry said SpaceX’s military Starshield terminals now work in motion only up to 160 km/h (about 100 mph), which officials say is too slow for attack and interceptor drones. Elon Musk said those limits are set by the U.S. military and ultimately the president.⁷

Asked in a Piers Morgan interview whether he felt betrayed by Trump, Zelenskyy answered “Yes.” He also told the Financial Times that Trump admires autocrats and the very wealthy. Putin said Ukraine’s long-range refinery strikes caused “nothing particularly significant.” Newsweek reported that the White House did not respond to a request for comment.⁸

Catholic Social Teaching Analysis

Five Days in October

On Sunday, October 11, President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social, “Effective immediately, there is an ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine.”⁹ Neither capital seems to have known it was coming. Asked about it, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the announcement “was news for me.” In Moscow, the Kremlin’s spokesman said only that “contacts are ongoing.”¹⁰

Kyiv stopped striking Russian refineries anyway. That evening, according to Ukrainian officials, Russian strikes hit a thermal power plant in Kharkiv, and the attacks on Ukraine’s grid kept coming all week long.¹¹ On Thursday, Zelenskyy told the Financial Times, “We’re done,” and within hours a refinery in Ryazan was on fire.¹² The “surprise” ceasefire was no more.

Most of the commentary since then has been a fight over blame. Did Zelenskyy break his word to the President? Did Putin break his word? However, with this analysis, I want to start further back. Let’s consider a question the Church was answering long before anyone fought over diesel: what makes a truce binding in the first place, and what do the parties owe each other once it exists? That question explains this week better than casting blame does.

Agreements Must Be Kept

The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church lists the principles that natural law has handed down to the law of nations, principles it calls “prior to and superior to the internal law of States.” Among them is “the need to be faithful to agreements undertaken (pacta sunt servanda).” And the Compendium singles that one out: “This last principle should be especially emphasized in order to avoid ‘temptation to appeal to the law of force rather than to the force of law.’”¹³

Pacta sunt servanda means “agreements must be kept.” It sounds like a lawyer’s maxim, and it is one. But the Church holds it for a moral reason first. The Compendium insists that “the same moral law that governs the life of men must also regulate relations among States.”¹⁴ And that moral law is the one every child learns at the kitchen table. The Catechism puts it in a single sentence under the seventh commandment: “Promises must be kept and contracts strictly observed to the extent that the commitments made in them are morally just.”¹⁵ A nation that gives its word is bound the way a man who gives his word is bound.

St. Thomas Aquinas pressed the point into the hardest case there is, which is war itself. He asked whether it is lawful to lay ambushes, and he allowed it, because a commander may keep his plans to himself. What he would never allow was deceiving an enemy “through being told something false, or through the breaking of a promise, and this is always unlawful.” Following St. Ambrose, he held that there are certain “rights of war and covenants, which ought to be observed even among enemies.”¹⁶

Even among enemies. A truce between Russia and Ukraine, once both sides have truly made it, binds them as strictly as a contract between friends. That’s a demanding standard, and Kyiv and Moscow both need to hear it. Washington needs to hear this as well because you must be careful when you throw around the word ceasefire or truce.

A Pact Needs Two Parties

Here is where the week gets uncomfortable. When Pope John XXIII described in Pacem in Terris how nations ought to settle their relations, he asked for “an adjustment that is based on mutual trust, sincerity in negotiation, and the faithful fulfillment of obligations assumed.”¹⁷ Obligations assumed. Somebody has to assume them. On Sunday afternoon, as far as the public record shows, nobody had. Moscow had nothing to say. Kyiv learned the news with the rest of us. A White House official told Axios that Russia had not yet agreed, and added, “We will know soon if they are ready.”¹⁸

So what did Sunday’s post create? I’d call it a good hope announced as an accomplished fact. John XXIII names the trouble with that. “The first point to be settled,” he wrote, “is that mutual ties between States must be governed by truth.”¹⁹ A truce declared before it exists starts on a false footing. Each side is told it has promised something it never promised, and whichever side keeps faith is left wondering whether it’s the only side to do so.

That is exactly what happened. Ukraine’s answer was conditional and, I think, honest: “If Russia will not attack our energy, we will not attack the energy.”²⁰ Kyiv then held its fire on Russian refineries for several days while Russian missiles kept hitting Ukrainian power plants. That pause was good faith offered to a pact the other side had never signed. Russia, for its part, never accepted the deal, so strictly speaking it broke nothing. And that leaves the arrangement where the Catechism’s sentence leaves any one-sided promise: a commitment only one party ever made.

So when Zelenskyy says “we’re done,” I don’t believe he is breaking faith in the sense Aquinas condemned. A promise made on condition of a return can lapse when the return never comes. Catholics can argue in good conscience about whether ending the pause was wise, and about whether refinery strikes serve Ukraine’s defense. Those are prudential questions. If we want to name a failure of good faith, it came earlier, in the gap between the announcement and the agreement.

The Law of Force

The Compendium asks that relations among peoples be “justly regulated according to the principles of reason, equity, law and negotiation, excluding recourse to violence and war, as well as to forms of discrimination, intimidation and deceit.”²¹ Read that list against this week’s methods.

Zelenskyy told the Financial Times that U.S. officials warned his commanders that Washington would “block intelligence” if the strikes on Russian energy production continued. Ukrainian officials say the usual Western warnings of incoming Russian missiles have gone quiet for days, and Ukraine’s military Starlink terminals now work in motion only up to 160 km/h, which officials call too slow for attack and interceptor drones. Elon Musk says those limits are set by the U.S. military and, ultimately, by the President. Trump denies withholding intelligence.²² I can’t settle that dispute based upon the information I have. But if a truce is being enforced on one party by switching off its air-raid warnings, that is the “law of force” the Compendium warns against, and it is landing on the side that kept the pause.

Nobody comes out of this week clean. Russia answered a ceasefire with strikes on power plants. Zelenskyy answered the pressure by telling a newspaper that the President admires autocrats and the very wealthy.²³ Pope Leo XIV, in Magnifica Humanitas, describes our moment almost exactly: “the impulsive broadcasts, aggressive rhetoric and power politics that characterize our time.”²⁴ A truce announced by a social-media post and buried by a newspaper interview is that moment in miniature. In the same chapter, Leo warns that such habits “undermine mutual trust among nations,” so that “the force of international law is thus replaced by the claim that ‘might makes right.’”²⁵ By failing to secure an actual ceasefire, Washington put both Ukraine and Russia in an untenable spot and reduced its ability to broker an honest end to this conflict.

What a Real Truce Would Take

The energy truce itself was a good idea. Winter is coming to Ukraine, and power plants keep hospitals lit and apartment blocks warm. A pause on energy strikes protects civilians on both sides of the front, and Catholics should want one badly. However, it is likely that the real motive behind the announcement was an effort to drive down the price of diesel fuel, which has been impacted by this conflict.

Leo XIV has moved the Church’s teaching on war in a direction that raises the stakes here. “Without prejudice to the right to self-defense in the strictest sense,” he writes, the “just war” theory “is now outdated,” and humanity possesses “far more effective and capable tools for promoting human life and resolving conflicts, such as dialogue, diplomacy and forgiveness.”²⁶ If those tools are going to carry more of the load, they have to be built to carry it. Leo names what that takes: “credible institutions, verifiable guarantees, patient negotiations, conflict prevention and the protection of civilians.”²⁷

Set that beside this week. A credible truce would have terms both governments sign before anyone announces them. It would cover what each side actually has at stake; a Ukrainian official pointed out that a refinery-for-refinery swap trades Ukraine’s one partly working refinery for Russia’s whole network.²⁸ It would include the power grids, because that’s where the civilians are. And it would carry some way of checking who fired first. Each of those is ordinary diplomatic work, the kind Pope John meant by sincerity in negotiation.

Leo also asks for patience with small beginnings: “every ounce of humility and patience should be employed in order to nurture even the faintest signs of goodwill among parties in conflict.”²⁹ Ukraine’s pause on refinery strikes was one of those faint signs. It deserved better than to be wasted by being ignored by Moscow.

What I’d Watch

Watch whether intelligence sharing and full Starlink service are restored. Watch whether Moscow puts its name, in writing, to any limit on energy strikes. And watch the power grids as the cold arrives.

Then pray. Pray for the three people killed in Kirovohrad this week, and for the families sitting in the dark in Kharkiv and Kyiv. Pray for the people of Ryazan living under the drones. Pray for President Trump, President Zelenskyy, and President Putin, that when they give their word they mean it, and that once they’ve given it they keep it. And pray for a truce worth keeping.

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This story turns on fidelity to agreements: a truce binds only when both sides have truly given their word, and once given, that word must be kept even with an enemy.

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Notes

1. ↑ “‘We’re done’: Zelenskiy overrides Trump’s energy truce,” Reuters via Newcastle Herald, accessed October 16, 2026, newcastleherald.com.au; “Russia says oil refinery hit as Zelensky says Ukraine ‘done’ with ceasefire,” Newsweek, accessed October 16, 2026, newsweek.com.
2. ↑ Newsweek, “Russia says oil refinery hit”; Reuters, “‘We’re done’”; Jack Davis, “‘We’re Done’: Zelenskyy Publicly Defies Trump with New Strikes, Then Insults Him,” Western Journal, October 15, 2026, westernjournal.com.
3. ↑ “Trump bears down on Zelensky as Russia keeps up attacks on Ukraine,” Axios, October 11, 2026, axios.com; “Kremlin has nothing to say on Trump’s energy ceasefire, rejects Zelensky’s truce proposal,” Kyiv Independent, October 12, 2026, kyivindependent.com; Efrat Lachter, “Zelenskyy blasts Putin for defying Trump’s ceasefire push,” Fox News, October 12, 2026, foxnews.com.
4. ↑ Lachter, “Zelenskyy blasts Putin”; Reuters, “‘We’re done’”; “Early Edition: October 15, 2026,” Just Security, October 15, 2026, summarizing Reuters reports, justsecurity.org.
5. ↑ Newsweek, “Russia says oil refinery hit”; “Russia’s Ryazan oil refinery suspends operations after drone strike, Reuters reports,” Kyiv Independent, accessed October 16, 2026, kyivindependent.com; Just Security, “Early Edition.”
6. ↑ Kyiv Independent, “Kremlin has nothing to say”; Newsweek, “Russia says oil refinery hit”; Davis, “‘We’re Done’”; Lachter, “Zelenskyy blasts Putin.”
7. ↑ Davis, “‘We’re Done’”; Reuters, “‘We’re done’”; Newsweek, “Russia says oil refinery hit.”
8. ↑ Newsweek, “Russia says oil refinery hit”; Reuters, “‘We’re done.’”
9. ↑ Axios, “Trump bears down on Zelensky”; Lachter, “Zelenskyy blasts Putin.”
10. ↑ Axios, “Trump bears down on Zelensky”; Kyiv Independent, “Kremlin has nothing to say.”
11. ↑ Kyiv Independent, “Kremlin has nothing to say”; Lachter, “Zelenskyy blasts Putin”; Reuters, “‘We’re done.’”
12. ↑ Reuters, “‘We’re done’”; Newsweek, “Russia says oil refinery hit.”
13. ↑ Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2004), no. 437, vatican.va.
14. ↑ Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium, no. 436.
15. ↑ Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997), no. 2410, vatican.va.
16. ↑ Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 40, a. 3, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province, in New Advent, newadvent.org.
17. ↑ Pope John XXIII, Encyclical Letter Pacem in Terris: On Establishing Universal Peace in Truth, Justice, Charity, and Liberty (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, April 11, 1963), no. 118, vatican.va.
18. ↑ Axios, “Trump bears down on Zelensky.”
19. ↑ Pope John XXIII, Pacem in Terris, no. 86.
20. ↑ Lachter, “Zelenskyy blasts Putin.”
21. ↑ Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium, no. 433.
22. ↑ Davis, “‘We’re Done’”; Reuters, “‘We’re done’”; Newsweek, “Russia says oil refinery hit.”
23. ↑ Reuters, “‘We’re done’”; Davis, “‘We’re Done.’”
24. ↑ Pope Leo XIV, Encyclical Letter Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, May 15, 2026), no. 224, vatican.va.
25. ↑ Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas, no. 202.
26. ↑ Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas, no. 192.
27. ↑ Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas, no. 218.
28. ↑ Axios, “Trump bears down on Zelensky.”
29. ↑ Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas, no. 224.

Books Cited

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• Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. (Doubleday / Image, 2003)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Latin-English edition (Aquinas Institute / Emmaus Academic, 2012)