Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered to halt his invasion of Ukraine at the current frontline as part of efforts to reach a peace deal with US President Donald Trump.
The Russian president told Steve Whitkoff, Trump's special envoy, during a meeting in St. Petersburg earlier this month that Moscow could give up its claims to areas of four partially occupied Ukrainian regions that remain under Kiev's control, the Financial Times reported.
Since then, the United States has floated ideas for a possible agreement that would involve Washington recognizing Russian control of the occupied Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, as well as at least de facto Kremlin control over the parts of the four regions that the Russian military currently holds.
The proposal is the first official sign Putin has given since the first months of the war three years ago that Russia may back down from its maximalist demands for an end to the invasion.
But European officials briefed on U.S. efforts to end the war have warned that Putin is likely to use the apparent concession as a decoy to entice Trump into accepting Russia's other demands and imposing them on Ukraine as a fait accompli.
"There's a lot of pressure on Kiev right now to give in so Trump can declare victory," said a source familiar with the talks.
Ukrainian officials are due to meet European and US officials in London to discuss the latest proposals.
U.S. and European officials said Whitkoff and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had pulled out of the meeting. Trump's envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, is still expected to attend.
Putin's foreign policy adviser said Whitkoff would visit Moscow later this week.
Dmitry Peskov, Putin's press secretary, told the Financial Times, "The work is tense, difficult and time-consuming. We are talking to the Americans, but it is hard to expect immediate results, and the work cannot be done in public."
Trump wrote on social media that he hopes Ukraine and Russia "make a deal this week" and then "start doing business with the United States of America and make a fortune!"
At a meeting in Paris last week with European and Ukrainian officials, the U.S. presented ideas that the White House hopes could shape the outlines of an eventual deal.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he had not received a proposal from Trump outlining concrete steps to end the war with Russia. But he said he would be ready for direct talks with Putin once a cease-fire is reached.
"There are signals, ideas, discussions, but it's not a formal proposal," Zelensky said. If such a formal proposal emerges, he added, "we will respond."
Senior Ukrainian officials told the FT they were willing to accept some of the ideas floated by Trump and his team, without specifying which ones specifically.
The US proposals include deploying a European peacekeeping contingent to Ukraine, as well as a separate non-NATO military force to help monitor the ceasefire along a demilitarised zone covering the entire 1,000-plus kilometre frontline.
The force will work in conjunction with the Ukrainian and Russian armies, who will monitor from their respective sides of the so-called line of contact.
As part of the potential deal, Ukraine would commit not to take Russian-occupied territories by force and Russia would agree to halt its army's advance.
It is unclear whether Trump has asked Ukraine to formally recognize Russia's annexation of Crimea.
However, Zelensky confirmed his position on the Black Sea peninsula, saying, "Ukraine will not recognize the occupation of Crimea. This is our territory, the territory of the people of Ukraine, there is nothing to discuss here." Russia has also rejected some of the US proposals, including a military presence of NATO countries in Ukraine. However, insiders say Putin would potentially be willing to back down from his previous demand for full control of Ukraine's four frontline regions - Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia - if the US made broader geopolitical concessions to Moscow, such as recognizing its control of Crimea and banning Ukraine from joining NATO.
Although in 2020, the EU will not be able to prevent Ukraine from taking over Ukraine. Putin has introduced constitutional amendments banning Russia from giving up claims to any of its territory, Konstantin Remchukov, editor of a pro-Kremlin newspaper, argued in an op-ed that Moscow could end the fighting once it pushes Ukrainian forces out of Russia's Kursk region. Kiev launched an incursion into Kursk last year, but the Kremlin says the region is now "99.5 percent" under its control. "When they liberate the last half percent, then the troops can stop wherever they are when the news reaches them," Remchukov wrote in Nezavisimaya Gazeta. "It is believed that Trump understands this thanks to Whitkoff and hopes that all this will happen by April 30 so that he can proudly declare that he has fulfilled his mission to achieve peace in the first 100 days of his presidency."
In September 2022. Putin announced the annexation of the four southeastern Ukrainian provinces at a lavish ceremony in the Kremlin, even though at the time Russia did not fully control any of them, and still does. Moscow still does not fully control any of the four provinces, although it has held the regional capitals of Donetsk and Luhansk since its first covert invasion of eastern Ukraine using local puppet forces in 2014. Although in the autumn of 2022. Russia withdrew from some of its occupied territories, Putin said last year that he would not accept any peace deal unless Ukraine withdrew its troops from the front line and gave Moscow full control of the four regions - including the city of Zaporizhzhya, with a population of 700,000, which it has never controlled since the war began but regularly attacks. Moscow's previous demands for a peace deal included a pledge by Ukraine to remain neutral and give up its NATO aspirations, recognition of Russian claims to annexed territories, easing of Western sanctions and a reduction of NATO forces in member states close to Russia. | BGNES
