Russian President Vladimir Putin has come out ostensibly in favor of a U.S.-brokered proposal for a total 30-day pause in his country’s war on Ukraine. However, Putin also laid out significant “nuances,” including questions about whether Ukraine will be allowed to mobilize and train forces, as well as continue to receive Western military aid, during any ceasefire. This, in turn, hints at demands that authorities in Kyiv could find impossible to accept.
Putin gave his first public response to the ceasefire proposal today during a press conference in Moscow alongside Belarus’ dictatorial President Alexander Lukashenko, a longtime Kremlin ally. Ukrainian authorities had agreed in principle to the U.S.-backed deal on Tuesday following negotiations with their American counterparts in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
“We agree with the proposal to stop the fighting. But we proceed from the fact that this cessation should lead to long-term peace and eliminate the root causes of this crisis,” Putin said, according to a translation of his remarks from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. “We are for [a cease-fire], but there are nuances.”
Putin’s list of “nuances” are not insignificant.
“What do we do about the incursion into the Kursk region? If we halt hostilities for 30 days, what does that mean? That everyone who remains there will be allowed to leave without a fight? Should we just let them go after they committed numerous crimes against civilians? How will this work? It’s unclear,” Putin said, according to Ukraine’s UNITED24 Media. “Ukraine could use a temporary ceasefire to mobilize and receive weapons; the question of how to control this must be resolved.”
Earlier today, Yuri Ushakov, an advisor to Putin, had pushed back on the viability of the U.S. ceasefire proposal in an interview with Russia’s state-run Channel 1 television channel. Ushakov said such a deal would be “nothing other than a temporary breather for Ukrainian troops” if it came without major preconditions.
Putin’s initial reference to the “root causes” of Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine has also been widely seen as a nod to the Kremlin’s long-standing maximalist positions regarding the conflict and Ukraine’s future territorial integrity and sovereignty, or lack thereof. The Russian president today also claimed that his forces were on the offensive on all fronts in the conflict, including in Kursk, which Ukrainian forces have occupied a part of since August of last year. He added that any ceasefire agreement would have to be dependent on conditions on the ground.
At the press conference today, Putin also notably thanked Trump for the attention given to the conflict in Ukraine and indicated a call with the American president could be on the horizon. Trump administration officials, especially Vice President J.D. Vance, had previously accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of not being sufficiently grateful for U.S. support.
A U.S. delegation led by Steve Witkoff is in Moscow and is expected to meet with Russian officials about the ceasefire proposal. This is despite earlier indications that the Kremlin did not see Witkoff as a suitable negotiator.
How Ukrainian officials respond to any conditions on a ceasefire deal from the Kremlin remains to be seen. However, the potential demands that Putin seems to have hinted at so far could be hard for Kyiv to accept, especially without any kind of reciprocal assurances from Russia.
Just on Tuesday, the U.S. government agreed to restore the flow of military aid to Ukraine, as well as restart intelligence sharing with that country, following Zelensky’s agreement on the basic terms of the proposed ceasefire deal. The cutoff had come following an unprecedentedly heated public exchange between Zelensky and President Donald Trump at the White House in February.
“We’ll take this [ceasefire] offer now to the Russians and we hope they’ll say yes to peace. The ball is now in their court,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had said on Tuesday. “If they say no, then we’ll unfortunately know what the impediment is to peace here.”
With Putin’s position as it has been laid out now, there are clearly issues that need to be resolved before any ceasefire deal with Ukraine can come into effect. More so, a temporary ceasefire is just that. Either side can use it as a tactical opportunity just as much as one that aims at achieving a longstanding peace. With both sides resource-stretched and war-weary, it remains anyone’s guess how all this will actually play out. But the fact that Putin did not reject the proposition outright is at least a sign that achieving such cessation of fighting may be possible.
Contact the author: joe@twz.com