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Vladimir Putin has said he has many questions about the proposed US-brokered ceasefire with Ukraine and appeared to set out a series of sweeping conditions that would need to be met before Russia would agree to such a truce.
Speaking at a press conference at the Kremlin alongside the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, Putin said he agreed in principle with US proposals to halt the fighting but said he wanted to address the “root causes of the conflict”.
“The idea itself is correct, and we certainly support it,” Putin said. But he suggested that Ukraine should neither rearm nor mobilise and that western military aid to Kyiv be halted during the 30-day ceasefire.
Donald Trump responded briefly before a meeting with the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, saying Putin had “made a very promising statement, but it was not complete”.
The US president said he was “ready to talk” to Putin. “We will see if Russia agrees, and if not, it will be a very disappointing moment,” he said. “I would like to see a ceasefire from Russia. We hope that Russia will do the right thing.”
Putin claimed Ukraine was seeking a ceasefire because of the battlefield situation, asserting that Russian forces were “advancing almost everywhere” and nearing full control of the Kursk region, where Kyiv launched a surprise incursion last year.
“How will these 30 days of [ceasefire] be used? To continue forced mobilisation in Ukraine? To supply weapons to Ukraine? … These are legitimate questions,” he said.
Ukraine has previously indicated it would continue its mobilisation efforts during any ceasefire.
“We need to discuss this with our American partners – perhaps a call with Donald Trump,” Putin added, thanking the US president for his involvement in the peace negotiations.
By avoiding an outright rejection of Trump’s proposal, Putin appears to be balancing between not openly rebuffing Trump’s push for peace while also imposing his own stringent demands – potentially prolonging negotiations.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, dismissed Putin’s ambivalent response to the proposal as “manipulative”.
“We now have all heard from Putin’s very predictable, very manipulative words in response to the idea of a ceasefire,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly address. “As we have always said, the only one who will drag things out, the only one who will be unconstructive, is Russia.”
Zelenskyy said Putin was “afraid to say directly to President Trump that he wants to continue this war”, accusing the Russian leader of “framing the idea of a ceasefire with such preconditions that nothing will work out at all, or for as long as possible”.
Speaking from the White House, Trump went into further detail on the US negotiations with Russia and Ukraine, saying that a “lot of individual subjects have been discussed”.
Trump indicated that the US and Ukraine had discussed “pieces of land that would be kept and lost, and all of the other elements of a final agreement”, including a power plant. Trump said Ukraine had also brought up Nato membership.
“We’ve been discussing concepts of land because you don’t want to waste time with the ceasefire if it’s not going to mean anything,” Trump said. “So we’re saying: look, this is what you can get, this is what you can’t get. Now we’re going to see if Russia’s there and if not it’s going to be a very disappointing moment for the world.”
Asked whether he had any leverage to compel Russia to agree to a ceasefire, Trump said he did but did not want to go into detail.
Trump said he could do “things financially that would be very bad for Russia” if a ceasefire was not agreed, but did not elaborate on whether he meant new sanctions or tariffs.
David Lammy, the UK foreign secretary, said: “It would be wrong for Putin to lay conditions. Our support for Ukraine, and that of other partners, remains ironclad.”
The Russian president had travelled to the Kursk region on Wednesday in a rare battlefield visit, where he spoke with Russian troops who were on the verge of expelling Ukrainian forces from the land it captured last year.
“What will happen in the Kursk region? Will an order be given for the troops stationed there to surrender?” Putin asked. “How the situation along the frontline will be resolved remains unclear.”
Ukraine has not officially confirmed an organised retreat from the Kursk region but Zelenskyy said on Wednesday that “the military command is doing what it should do – saving the maximum number of lives of our soldiers”.
On Thursday, a source in Ukraine’s military who recently left the Kursk region said: “It’s over. The only question now is managing the withdrawal with as few losses as possible.”
But although Ukraine appears to be withdrawing from Kursk, Kyiv has largely stabilised the front in eastern Ukraine, where a Russian offensive has stalled in recent weeks.
Putin’s remarks came hours after Trump’s envoy and close ally, Steve Witkoff, landed in Moscow, where he is expected to meet Putin to push for a ceasefire after Washington’s talks with Ukrainian officials in Saudi Arabia.
After those talks, Ukraine said it was ready to accept an immediate 30-day ceasefire and the US said it was putting the proposal to Moscow.
Recent rhetoric from Russian officials has shown little urgency to reach an agreement or make concessions, as Moscow remains on the offensive on the battlefield.
A Kremlin aide, Yuri Ushakov, said he had informed the US national security adviser, Mike Waltz, that Moscow views the proposed 30-day ceasefire as “nothing more than a short reprieve for Ukrainian forces”.
Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, said on Thursday that Moscow was ready to discuss a US-backed peace initiative “as early as today”. But she indicated that Russia saw little urgency in a halt to fighting, reiterating it would not accept western peacekeepers in Ukraine as a security guarantee and that they would be targeted if deployed.
Ukraine has said it would need some kind of security guarantee in order to sign a lasting ceasefire deal.
Moscow’s continued resistance to European peacekeeping forces – seen by Ukraine as the only viable alternative to Nato membership for guaranteeing its security – presents a big obstacle to a peace acceptable to Kyiv.
Observers believe Putin is determined to put forward a string of maximalist demands before agreeing to any ceasefire, which is likely to prolong negotiations.
Reuters and Bloomberg have reported that Russia, in discussions with the US, has presented a list of such demands to end the war in Ukraine and reset relations with Washington. The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, declined to comment on the reports.
These demands could include the demilitarisation of Ukraine, an end to western military aid and a commitment to keeping Kyiv out of Nato. Moscow may also push for a ban on foreign troop deployments in Ukraine and international recognition of Putin’s claims to Crimea and the four Ukrainian regions Russia annexed in 2022.
Putin could also revisit some of his broader demands from 2021, which go beyond Ukraine, including a call for Nato to halt the deployment of weapons in member states that joined after 1997, when the alliance began expanding into former communist countries.
Many in Europe fear these conditions for peace could weaken the west’s ability to increase its military presence and could allow Putin to expand his influence across the continent.
