Russian President Vladimir Putin is willing to discuss a ceasefire in Ukraine with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump despite recent escalatory actions made by Joe Biden and NATO member nations.
According to at least five Kremlin sources, Putin is open to negotiating with Trump a roadmap to ending the Ukraine conflict, but ruled out making any major territorial concessions and insisted Kyiv abandon ambitions to join NATO, Reuters reported on Wednesday.
However, Moscow has signaled there may be room for negotiation over the precise carve-up of the four eastern regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson that Russia currently occupies, which encompass territory approximately the size of West Virginia.
Russia is also reportedly open to discussing security guarantees for Kyiv by the U.N. Security Council: Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.
“The question is how to avoid a deal that locks the West into a possible direct confrontation with Russia one day,” one official said.
Notably, Joe Biden has not spoken with Putin since early 2022, just before Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine.
Two of the Kremlin sources claimed that Biden’s decision to greenlight Ukraine to launch U.S.-made long-range missiles into Russian territory has complicated the prospect of peace.
From Reuters:
Two of the sources said outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to fire American ATACMS missiles deep into Russia could complicate and delay any settlement – and stiffen Moscow’s demands as hardliners push for a bigger chunk of Ukraine. On Tuesday, Kyiv used the missiles to strike Russian territory for the first time, according to Moscow which decried the move as a major escalation.
If no cease-fire is agreed, the two sources said, then Russia will fight on.
“Putin has already said that freezing the conflict will not work in any way,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Reuters hours before the Russians reported the ATACMS strikes. “And the missile authorisation is a very dangerous escalation on the part of the United States.”
Trump communications director Stephen Cheung said of the incoming president, “He is the only person who can bring both sides together in order to negotiate peace, and work towards ending the war and stopping the killing.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in contrast to Putin, has rejected any ceasefire or peace proposals by Trump, and claimed that Ukraine will not relent until Russia has withdrawn all its forces from the occupied eastern territory.
Russia currently controls 18% of Ukraine if Crimea is included, and Moscow has said that the peninsula will not be surrendered.
Putin had said he took Trump’s pledge to broker peace between Ukraine and Russia “very seriously” in July when the former president was still the Republican candidate for the 2024 election.
President Putin says he takes Donald Trump's plan to end the war with Ukraine very seriously and Russia supports it. pic.twitter.com/FVAxW3XQRG
— Cyprian, Is Nyakundi (@C_NyaKundiH) July 5, 2024
Unfortunately, a ceasefire deal has become even more elusive after Ukraine launched long-range Storm Shadow missiles supplied by the UK on Wednesday, leading some experts to speculate that the West is trying to “sabotage” diplomatic efforts by Trump when he becomes president in January.