Putin: Russia agrees to Ukraine truce but there are “nuances”

Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, in a joint press conference with Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko, that Russia agrees with the proposal to cease hostilities, but this should lead to a “lasting peace”, international press agencies report.

“We agree with the proposal to cease hostilities, but it should lead to a lasting peace and eliminate the root causes of this crisis,” he said, according to the BBC.

Putin added that he was convinced that Ukraine should have insisted on a meeting with the US, like the one in Saudi Arabia, given the situation on the ground.

Putin said of his appearance on Wednesday in the Kursk region, where the Russians are said to have surrounded the Ukrainians, that the situation “is fully under our control.”

He added that control of the Ukrainian forces “has been lost,” saying their equipment had been “abandoned.”

Regarding this situation, Putin said that “it would be good” for Ukraine to achieve a 30-day ceasefire, stating that “we are in favor of it.” But, he stressed, there are “nuances.” “If we were to cease hostilities… what would that mean?” Putin asked rhetorically, referring to what would happen in the Russian Kursk region.

“Who will give the order to cease hostilities and what value will these orders have?” he asks. 4

The Russian president wonders who will decide where a “violation of the possible ceasefire agreement” takes place along the 2,000km – possibly referring to the length of the Russian-Ukrainian border.

“All these issues need to be studied carefully by both sides,” he says, adding that the idea of ​​a ceasefire is “good and we absolutely support it, but there are issues that we need to discuss.”

Putin says he believes “we need to negotiate with our American colleagues and partners” and that he may have a phone call with US President Donald Trump. “The very idea of ​​ending this conflict by peaceful means, we support,” Putin said.

However, earlier in the day Kremlin said that a temporary ceasefire would give Ukraine a “breather,” justifying its refusal to accept a truce. Yuri Ushakov, Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy adviser, said on state television on Thursday that Moscow wanted a long-term agreement that would take its interests into account.

For the Kremlin, the 30-day ceasefire proposed at the end of talks between Washington and Kiev that took place in Saudi Arabia would be “nothing more than a respite for Ukrainian troops,” Ushakov said, Le Figaro reports.

At the same time, Russia warned on Thursday that it would consider the sending of European peacekeeping forces to Ukraine as a “direct armed conflict” with Moscow.

“It is absolutely unacceptable for us that units of the armed forces of other states be deployed in Ukraine (…). All this would mean the involvement of these countries in a direct armed conflict with our country, to which we will respond with all available means,” Russian diplomatic spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told the press, commenting on the idea that European countries, allies of Kiev, would send such a contingent in the event of an agreement on the cessation of hostilities.

The representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, thus commented on the idea of ​​some European countries allied with Ukraine to send a peacekeeping contingent to the war-torn country in the event of an agreement to cease hostilities with Moscow’s troops. “We believe that the mere fact of evoking such intentions constitutes a blatant provocation, which does not aim at resolving the conflict, but at maintaining unhealthy and harmful illusions among the senior officials of the Kiev regime,” continued Maria Zakharova.

It is the first time that Moscow has warned that it will consider such a deployment as the equivalent of military aggression.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will host a videoconference meeting on Ukraine with several heads of state and government on Saturday, a follow-up to the summit on March 2, at the end of which he announced the formation of a “coalition of the willing” willing to contribute to a peacekeeping contingent in Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire agreement with Russia (“Coalition of the Willing”). Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron are insistently discussing the issue of sending peacekeeping troops to Ukraine as a security guarantee for this country, despite Russia’s repeated statements that it opposes the presence of foreign troops on Ukrainian territory.

The statements also come as a US delegation arrived in Moscow on Thursday to brief on the results of talks in Saudi Arabia with Ukraine, as President Donald Trump seeks to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine after a war that has raged for more than three years. Moscow also said on Thursday it had recaptured the key town of Sudzha in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces seized last year in an offensive designed to give it leverage for territorial swaps in possible future peace talks.

But Russia is on the verge of driving Ukrainian forces out of the region, and Russian leader Vladimir Putin reportedly visited the front there on Wednesday. Following talks between the Ukrainian and US delegations in Jeddah, Ukraine agreed to accept a US proposal for an immediate 30-day ceasefire and to take steps to restore a lasting peace after Russia’s invasion, according to a joint statement by the delegations.

The Kremlin outlined one of its preconditions on Thursday. Anti-Russian sanctions are illegal, so all of them should be lifted, said Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov.

“As for the details, this is already a subject of negotiation, and here I want to remind you of my words – let’s not rush. “There is no point in expressing any individual comments before the negotiations,” Peskov added.

According to Interfax, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko also flew to Moscow on Thursday, where he is to hold talks with Vladimir Putin. The talks between the two leaders were announced a day earlier by the Kremlin press service. It is the first foreign trip by Lukashenko – a key ally of Vladimir Putin – after his re-election as head of Belarus, where Moscow has already reportedly moved tactical nuclear missiles. A series of joint documents are expected to be signed following the talks.

Trump threatens Putin with “devastating sanctions” if he continues the war in Ukraine

On the other hand, US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday, during a conference at the Oval Office, that he will impose devastating sanctions on Russia if Russian dictator Vladimir Putin decides to continue the war in Ukraine, reports the BBC.

Trump warned he will impose sanctions on Russia if Putin does not accept a peace deal. “There are things I can do that are not very nice from a financial point of view,” Trump said. “It would be very bad for Russia. I don’t want to do that because I want peace,” Trump said, adding that these “financial measures” could be “devastating” for Moscow.

“We’re getting close to doing something (on Ukraine),” Trump told reporters. According to Trump, the once “difficult” Ukrainian side has changed its mind. “We had a guy (Zelensky) who didn’t seem to want peace. Now he’s agreed to peace. So we’ll see,” Trump said. The US president declined to assess the likelihood of a deal, but said he thought it “made sense for Russia,” according to a BBC correspondent at the White House.