Putin gives verdict on US ceasefire plan
Russian President Vladimir Putin has put his support behind a ceasefire with Ukraine, but not without his own conditions.
President Vladimir Putin says Russia agrees with US proposals for a ceasefire in Ukraine, but that any ceasefire must deal with the root causes of the conflict and many details needed to be sorted out.
President Donald Trump later said Putin’s statement was “very promising” but not complete.
Trump met NATO chief Mark Rutte at the White House on Thursday (local time), while his Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff was in Moscow to meet Putin.
Putin sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in 2022, triggering the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the depths of the Cold War.
“We agree with the proposals to cease hostilities,” Putin said at the Kremlin on Thursday, following talks with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
“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.”
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Russian forces have advanced since mid-2024 and control nearly a fifth of Ukraine’s territory, three years into a war that Trump has said he will halt.
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”.
Putin thanked Trump for his efforts to end the war.
“The idea itself is correct, and we certainly support it,” Putin said.
“But 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.
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“We support the idea of ending this conflict by peaceful means,” he said.
Ukraine and Poland confirmed on Wednesday that US arms deliveries had resumed through a Polish logistics centre.
The Ukrainian delegation provided me with a detailed report on its meeting with US representatives in Saudi Arabia, including the progress of negotiations and key aspects.
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) March 13, 2025
It is good that the conversation was entirely constructive. Ukraine is committed to moving quickly toward… pic.twitter.com/5chfbyUvjB
Putin presses battlefield advantage
Meanwhile, Putin, dressed in military fatigues, has ordered the swift defeat of Ukrainian forces in western Russia, a signal to the US that Moscow holds the military initiative.
Russia’s advances along the front in recent months and Trump’s attempt to strike a peace deal to end the three-year-old conflict in Ukraine have raised fears that Kyiv, which was backed by the West, could lose the war.
Just hours after Trump said he hoped Russia would agree to the US 30-day ceasefire proposal, the Kremlin published footage of Putin dressed in a green camouflage uniform visiting the Kursk region of western Russia where Ukraine is set to lose its foothold after a lightning offensive by Russian forces.
“Our task in the near future, in the shortest possible time frame, is to decisively defeat the enemy entrenched in the Kursk region,” said Putin, a former KGB officer who rarely wears a military uniform.
“Of course, we need to think about creating a security zone along the state border,” Putin said.
He did not mention the ceasefire idea.
In an attempt to divert Russian forces from eastern Ukraine, gain a bargaining chip and embarrass Putin, Ukraine smashed across the border into the Kursk region in August, the biggest attack on Russian territory since the Nazi invasion of 1941.
Ukraine now has a sliver of less than 200 square kilometres in Kursk, down from 1300 square kilometres at the peak of the incursion last summer, according to the Russian military.
