In No Hurry for Cease-Fire, Putin Demands Numerous Ukrainian Concessions
The New York Times
The remarks by the Russian leader suggested he wanted to draw out negotiations or make a truce impossible. Ukraine’s leader called the response to a cease-fire plan “manipulative.”
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Thursday did not rule out a U.S. and Ukrainian proposal for a monthlong cease-fire, but he set down numerous conditions that would most likely delay any truce — or could make one impossible to achieve.
Mr. Putin’s comments during a news conference highlighted the balance he was trying to strike, exuding confidence in Russia’s position on the battlefield while seeking to continue talks with the United States and avoid upsetting President Trump. The U.S. president, having antagonized the country’s allies and realigned American foreign policy in Russia’s favor, has emerged as a key geopolitical partner for Mr. Putin.
In sharp remarks later in the day, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said the Russian leader set so many conditions “that nothing will work out at all or that it will not work out for as long as possible.”
Mr. Putin’s comments came before he was to meet with Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s Middle East envoy, to discuss the cease-fire proposal that Ukraine had already agreed to. As of early Friday Moscow time, the Kremlin had not commented on how the meeting went. But the Kremlin said Mr. Putin had also spoken by phone with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia, about Ukraine.
Mr. Putin’s remarks also came as Russia kept up its momentum in the key battle in the Kursk region of Russia, where Moscow’s forces appeared close to pushing Ukraine out of the territory it seized last summer. Such a development would reduce Kyiv’s leverage in future peace talks.
“The idea itself is the right one, and we definitely support it,” Mr. Putin said, referring to the cease-fire proposal. “But there are questions that we need to discuss, and I think that we need to talk them through with our American colleagues and partners.”
