Russian President Vladimir Putin will probably agree to eventual truce terms with Ukraine but wants his own conditions met beforehand, likely dragging out the negotiations.
The Russian leader wants to make sure his stipulations are taken into account before agreeing to a ceasefire, according to a person familiar with the Kremlin’s thinking.
To achieve that, he’ll try to stretch out the timeline for agreeing to any halt to fighting in Ukraine, other people with knowledge of the situation said.
In a show of determination, Putin visited his troops in Russia’s Kursk region Wednesday. Wearing military camouflage, Putin met with high-ranking military officers and called for “completely defeating the enemy that entrenched in the Kursk region as soon as possible,” according to state-run Rossiya 24 TV. Ukraine intended to use land it seized in Kursk as a bargaining chip in negotiations, but Russia has been gaining the upper hand there.
Russian officials hadn’t discussed with their US counterparts the specific deal that a Ukrainian delegation agreed to in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah on Tuesday, and the Kremlin finds that framework unacceptable, one person said.
The agreement between US and Ukrainian officials presents a dilemma for Putin, who has so far escaped the type of high-pressure campaign the White House had waged against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Still, the outline of the deal reached in Jeddah doesn’t do what Russia has previously said it needs in order to halt the fighting — address the parameters of a more long-term settlement to the war Putin started in February 2022.
The Kremlin also might demand a halt to weapons supplies to Ukraine as a condition for the ceasefire, one of the people close to the Kremlin said.
“Putin won’t give a hard ‘yes’ or a hard ‘no,’” Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said in a phone interview. “Even in a fantastic situation where Putin makes some gestures toward a truce, it would still be a temporary one and with very harsh conditions.”
Russia has previously demanded that Ukraine become a neutral nation, significantly reduce the size of its armed forces and cede territory, starting with the land Russia has seized in the war.
In return for Ukraine’s acceptance of the US truce proposal, the Trump administration agreed to lift a freeze on military aid and intelligence for Kyiv.
President Donald Trump told reporters in the Oval Office Wednesday that he hoped it wouldn’t be necessary to pressure Putin to accept the ceasefire deal.
“People are going to Russia right now as we speak, and hopefully we can get a ceasefire from Russia,” Trump said. “And if we do, I think that would be 80% of the way to getting this horrible bloodbath done.”
US envoy Steve Witkoff “is making his way to Moscow this week” to “urge the Russians to sign on to this negotiation, and we hope that they will,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News. She added that US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz spoke Wednesday to his Russian counterpart.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that Moscow was waiting for details of the agreement but didn’t rule out a phone call between the two leaders.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio urged Moscow to accept the terms in comments on Wednesday and said Ukraine’s ability to deter Russia in the future would be part of the conversation.
“There’s different ways to construct a deterrent on the ground,” he told reporters in a press conference at Shannon Airport, Ireland, on Wednesday. “How that looks, and how that’s put together, that’s what we’re going to talk about.”
Zelenskiy said on Wednesday that Ukraine’s partners will need to help monitor any ceasefire if Russia eventually comes on board.
“It’s clear for us how to monitor it,” he told reporters in Kyiv. “But given it’s silence everywhere — and realizing who we are dealing with — and having the experience of past years, technical assistance is required.”
Putin has repeatedly brushed aside Trump’s bid for a quick halt to the war. During his annual news conference in December, he said: “We don’t need a truce — we need peace: long-term, durable, with guarantees for the Russian Federation and its citizens.”
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Trump has continued to say he believes Putin wants peace. Washington could potentially offer Putin a summit meeting with Trump in exchange for signing onto the accord, bringing him in from the cold after former President Joe Biden’s administration eschewed most contact with their counterparts in Moscow.
Western security officials say that Putin has been deliberately making maximalist demands because he knows they will be unacceptable to Ukraine and Europe, and that he’s ready to continue fighting, Bloomberg News reported Tuesday. Meanwhile, defense ministers from European military powers France, Italy, Poland, the UK and Germany, were set to gather in Paris on Wednesday to coordinate on support for Kyiv.
Rubio said he assumed Russia would raise the issue of European sanctions during their talks with US counterparts. “I think the issue of European sanctions will be on the table, not to mention the frozen assets and the like,” he said.
If there’s going to be peace in Ukraine, at the end of the process “there’s going to have to be some decision made by the Europeans on what they do on these sanctions,” he said.
With assistance from Stephanie Lai.
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
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