Putin backs US ceasefire idea for Ukraine, but says many details need to be sorted out

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Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia agreed with US proposals for a ceasefire in Ukraine but any truce would have to deal with the root causes of the conflict and that many crucial details needed to be sorted out.

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

Putin’s support — though caveated — for the US ceasefire proposal offers the best chance so far to end the biggest conflict in Europe since World War Two, as Ukraine had also agreed to the proposal at talks earlier in the week.

“We agree with the proposals to cease hostilities,” Putin told reporters at a news conference in the Kremlin following talks with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.

“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.”

Putin thanked US President Donald Trump, who says he wants to be remembered as a peacemaker for his efforts to end the war, which both Moscow and Washington now cast as a deadly proxy war which could have escalated into World War Three.

Trump had said in the White House on Wednesday that he hoped the Kremlin would agree to the US proposal for a 30-day ceasefire that Ukraine said it would support, to end what Trump called the “bloodbath”.

“I can do things financially that would be very bad for Russia,” Trump said. “I don’t want to do that because I want to get peace. I want to see peace and we’ll see. But in a financial sense, yeah, we could do things very bad for Russia. It would be devastating for Russia.”

Trump has threatened harsher sanctions on Moscow should it fail to negotiate, but sanctions relief if it agrees to a ceasefire in Ukraine.

Russia advancing

Russian forces have been advancing since mid-2024 and control nearly a fifth of Ukraine’s territory. Putin said Russian forces were moving forward along the entire frontline and said the ceasefire would have to ensure that Ukraine did not seek to simply use it to regroup.

Meanwhile, Putin on Wednesday donned a camouflage uniform to visit a command post in the Kursk region of western Russia where Ukraine is poised to lose its foothold after a major offensive by Russian forces.

“How can we and how will we be guaranteed that nothing like this will happen? How will control [of the ceasefire] be organised?” Putin said. “These are all serious questions.

“There are issues that we need to discuss. And I think we need to talk to our American colleagues as well.” Putin said he might call Trump to discuss the issue.

Putin’s top foreign policy aide said today that he had told Washington that a 30-day ceasefire proposed by the United States to pause the war in Ukraine would simply give Kyiv’s forces a much-needed battlefield respite.

Trump’s Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff arrived in Moscow today to meet Putin. Russian officials said US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz had provided details on the ceasefire idea on Wednesday and Russia was ready to discuss it.

Yuri Ushakov, a former ambassador to Washington who speaks for Putin on major foreign policy issues, told state television that he had spoken to Waltz on Wednesday to outline Russia’s position on the ceasefire.

“I stated our position that this is nothing other than a temporary respite for the Ukrainian military, nothing more,” Ushakov said.

“Our goal is a long-term peaceful settlement that takes into account the legitimate interests of our country and our well-known concerns. It seems to me that no one needs any steps that [merely] imitate peaceful actions in this situation,” he said.

Asked if Russia was, therefore, rejecting the proposal, Ushakov, who has served alongside Putin in the Kremlin since 2012, said that the president would likely speak to the media later today and outline Russia’s position in more detail.

The remarks from such a senior Kremlin official indicate that Putin, Russia’s paramount leader since 1999, thinks that Russia’s advances on the battlefield in Ukraine and western Russia give Moscow a strong hand in peace negotiations.

Two Russian industry sources told Reuters that Russia’s industry and trade ministry was asking companies to suggest which sanctions most urgently needed to be lifted. The ministry was not immediately available for comment.

The Kremlin said it believes all sanctions are illegal and should be lifted.