Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed direct talks with Ukraine in Istanbul on Could 15, “with out preconditions” to attain “lasting peace” and “eradicate the basis causes” of the three-year battle.
The provide, delivered early on Sunday, got here hours after the leaders of Ukraine, France, Germany, Poland and the UK referred to as for an unconditional 30-day ceasefire to start out on Monday.
The leaders, who have been assembly in Kyiv, mentioned their name is backed by United States President Donald Trump and threatened “large” new sanctions on Moscow if it didn’t agree with their plan.
Putin didn’t explicitly deal with that decision in his feedback, however slammed European “ultimatums” and “anti-Russian rhetoric” earlier than outlining the counter-proposal for renewed Russia-Ukraine negotiations.
“We’re proposing that Kyiv resume direct negotiations with none preconditions,” the Russian president instructed reporters. “We provide the Kyiv authorities to renew negotiations already on Thursday, in Istanbul.”
Putin mentioned that he would communicate to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a while Sunday about facilitating the talks.
There was no rapid response from Ukraine to the proposal.
However Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has beforehand mentioned he was prepared for peace talks, however solely after a ceasefire is in place.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which started in February 2022, has left lots of of 1000’s of troopers lifeless and triggered the gravest confrontation between Russia and the West for the reason that 1962 Cuban Missile Disaster.
Russian and Ukrainian negotiators held direct talks in Istanbul within the first weeks of the battle, however did not comply with halt the combating.
Putin mentioned Russia was proposing restarting the talks in an try to “eradicate the basis causes of the battle” and “to attain the restoration of a long-term, lasting peace” reasonably than merely a pause for rearmament.
“We don’t exclude that in these talks we can agree on some new ceasefire,” he added.
Putin, whose forces have superior over the previous 12 months, has confronted elevated private and non-private stress from Trump in addition to warnings from European powers to finish the warfare.
However he has supplied few concessions and has stood agency in his circumstances for ending the warfare.
In June 2024, Putin mentioned Ukraine should formally drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw its troops from the whole thing of the territory of 4 Ukrainian areas claimed by Russia.
Russian officers have additionally proposed that the US recognise Russia’s management over about one-fifth of Ukraine and demanded that Ukraine stay impartial, although Moscow has mentioned it’s not against Kyiv’s ambitions to affix the European Union.
Putin particularly talked about the 2022 draft deal from the talks in Istanbul.
Beneath that draft, Ukraine ought to comply with everlasting neutrality in return for worldwide safety ensures from the 5 everlasting members of the United Nations Safety Council: China, France, Russia, the UK and the US.
“It was not Russia that broke off negotiations in 2022. It was Kyiv,” Putin mentioned. “Russia is able to negotiate with none preconditions.”
He thanked China, Brazil, African and Center Jap nations and the US for his or her efforts to mediate.
Russia, Putin added, had proposed a number of ceasefires, together with a moratorium on putting vitality amenities, an Easter ceasefire, and most not too long ago, the 72-hour truce in the course of the celebrations marking 80 years since victory in World Conflict II, however accused Ukraine of repeatedly violating the ceasefires.
He mentioned that in the course of the Could ceasefire, Ukraine had attacked Russia with 524 aerial drones, 45 sea drones, quite a lot of Western missiles and that Russia had repelled 5 assaults on Russian areas.
Ukraine, too, has accused Russia of repeatedly violating its personal ceasefire.
Earlier on Saturday, for the primary time, the leaders of France, Germany, Poland and the UK travelled collectively to Ukraine in a go to that Zelenskyy mentioned despatched “a vital sign”.
The 5 leaders, following their assembly in Kyiv, issued a press release calling for a ceasefire “lasting no less than 30 days” from Monday, to make room for a diplomatic push to finish the warfare.
“An unconditional ceasefire by definition can’t be topic to any circumstances. If Russia requires such circumstances, this could solely be thought of as an effort to delay the warfare and undermine diplomacy,” the assertion learn.
French President Emmanuel Macron mentioned the US would take the lead in monitoring the proposed ceasefire, with assist from European nations, and threatened “large sanctions … ready and coordinated between Europeans and People” ought to Russia violate the truce.
In the meantime, retired Lieutenant Common Keith Kellogg, Trump’s particular envoy to Ukraine, mentioned Saturday {that a} “complete” 30-day ceasefire, masking assaults from the air, land, sea and on infrastructure, “will begin the method for ending the most important and longest warfare in Europe since World Conflict II”.
Trump, who says he needs to be remembered as a peacemaker, has repeatedly mentioned he needs to finish the “massacre” of the Ukraine warfare, which his administration casts as a proxy warfare between the US and Russia.
Former US President Joe Biden, Western European leaders and Ukraine solid the invasion as an imperial-style land seize and repeatedly pledged to defeat Russian forces.
Putin casts the warfare as a watershed second in Moscow’s relations with the West, which he says humiliated Russia after the Soviet Union fell in 1991 by enlarging NATO and encroaching on what he considers Moscow’s sphere of affect, together with Ukraine.
