Putin suggests US ceasefire idea for Ukraine needs serious reworking

MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia supported a U.S. proposal for a ceasefire in Ukraine in principle, but sought a number of clarifications and conditions that appeared to rule out a quick end to the fighting.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has left hundreds of thousands of dead and injured, displaced millions of people, reduced towns to rubble and triggered the sharpest confrontation for decades between Moscow and the West.

Putin’s heavily qualified support for the U.S. ceasefire proposal looked designed to signal goodwill to Washington and open the door to further talks with U.S. President Donald Trump.
But Putin said many crucial details needed to be sorted out and any agreement must address the root causes of the conflict. Russia called its 2022 invasion a “special military operation” designed to “denazify” Ukraine and halt an expansion of NATO.

“We agree with the proposals to cease hostilities,” Putin told reporters at the Kremlin. “The idea itself is correct, and we certainly support it.”

“But we proceed from the fact that this cessation should be such that it would lead to long-term peace and would eliminate the original causes of this crisis.”

He went on to list a slew of issues he said needed clarifying and thanked Trump, who says he wants to be remembered as a peacemaker, for his efforts to end the war. Both Moscow and Washington now cast the conflict as a deadly proxy war that could have escalated into World War Three.

Trump, who said he was willing to talk to the Russian leader by phone, called Putin’s statement “very promising” and said he hoped Moscow would “do the right thing.”
Trump said Steve Witkoff, his special envoy, was engaged in talks with the Russians in Moscow on the U.S. proposal, which Kyiv has already agreed to.

The U.S. president said those discussions on Thursday would show if Moscow was ready to make a deal.

“Now we’re going to see whether or not Russia is there, and if they’re not, it’ll be a very disappointing moment for the world,” he said. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Putin was preparing to reject the ceasefire proposal but was afraid to tell Trump.

“That’s why in Moscow they are imposing upon the idea of a ceasefire these conditions, so that nothing happens at all, or so that it cannot happen for as long as possible,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

TERRITORIAL QUESTIONS

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Thursday she thinks Russia will likely say yes to a ceasefire but with conditions.

Speaking with Reuters on the sidelines of the G7 Foreign Ministers’ summit in Canada, Kallas said the U.S. has told members it understands that Russia may be playing a game to extend the process by blurring the picture.

Any delay would give Russia more time for its troops to push the last Ukrainian forces out of Russia’s western Kursk region. Moscow also demands that Kyiv permanently cede territory claimed by Russia, a position that Ukraine rejects.

Ukraine and its allies describe Russia’s 2022 invasion as an imperial-style land grab, and Zelenskiy has repeatedly vowed to defeat Russian forces. Russian forces control nearly a fifth of Ukraine’s territory and have been edging forward since mid-2024.

Trump said his administration has been discussing what land Ukraine would keep or lose under any settlement, as well as the future of a large power plant.

He did not name it but was likely referring to the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia facility in Ukraine, Europe’s largest nuclear plant. The two sides have accused each other of risking an accident at the plant with their actions.

Putin portrays the conflict as part of an existential battle with a declining and decadent West which he says humiliated Russia after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 by enlarging the NATO military alliance and encroaching on what he considers Moscow’s sphere of influence, including Ukraine.

Putin said Russian forces were moving forward along the entire frontline and that the ceasefire would have to ensure that Ukraine did not seek to use it simply to regroup.
He also said he might call Trump to discuss the issue.

The United States agreed on Tuesday to resume weapons supplies and intelligence sharing with Ukraine after Kyiv said it was ready to support a ceasefire proposal.

The Saudi state news agency said Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman spoke to Putin by phone and told him the kingdom remains committed to supporting a political resolution in Ukraine.