Vladimir Putin proposed to stop his invasion of Ukraine on the front line in the context of efforts to conclude a peace agreement with US President Donald Trump, according to people familiar with the issue.
Russian President told Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy at a meeting in Saint Petersburg earlier this month that Moscow could give up his claims in regions of four partially occupied Ukrainian regions that remain under the control of kyiv, said three of the people.
The United States has since floated ideas for a possible regulation which includes Washington recognizing the Russian property of the Crimean Peninsula of Ukraine, added the people, as well as at least grateful the de facto control of the Kremlin on the parts of the four regions it currently holds.
The proposal is the first official indication that Putin gave for the first months of war three years ago that Russia could back up from its maximalist requests to end the invasion.
But European officials informed American efforts to end the warned war that Putin would probably use the apparent concession as a bait to attract Trump to accept other Russia requests and force them in Ukraine as a fact.
“There is a lot of pressure on kyiv at the moment to abandon things so that Trump can win the victory,” said an official.
Ukrainian officials must meet European and American officials in London on Wednesday to discuss the latest proposals.
However, Witkoff and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio withdrew from the meeting, according to American and European officials. Trump’s Ukrainian envoy Keith Kellogg should still attend.
Putin’s foreign policy advisor said on Tuesday that Witkoff would go to Moscow later this week, according to Russian information.
Dmitry Peskov, spokesperson for Putin, told the FT: “Ten-on work is underway. We are talking to the Americans. The work is difficult and takes a long time, so it is difficult to expect immediate results, and work cannot be done in public. ”
Trump posted on social networks on Sunday that he hoped that Ukraine and Russia “would conclude an agreement this week”, then “will begin to do business with the United States of America, which prospered and makes a fortune!”
The American floating ideas that the hopes of the White House could form the contours of a possible agreement at a meeting in Paris last week with European and Ukrainian officials.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday that he had not received a proposal from Trump describing specific steps to end the Russian War. But he said that once a ceasefire in place, he would be ready for direct talks with Putin.
“There are signals, ideas, discussions, but it is not an official proposal,” said Zelenskyy. If such an official proposal came, he added: “We will answer”.
Senior Ukrainian officials told the FT that they were proven to some of the ideas launched by Trump and his team without specifying which in particular.
American proposals include the deployment of a European peacekeeping contingent in Ukraine as well as a separate and non-NATO military force to help monitor a cease-fire along a demilitarized area covering the entire first line of more than 1,000 km.
The force would work jointly with the Ukrainian and Russian forces monitoring the armistice on their respective sides of the so-called contact line.
Within the framework of a potential agreement, Ukraine undertook not to take over the territory occupied by Russia by force, while Russia would agree to stop the slow advance of its army.
It is not clear if Trump asked Ukraine to officially recognize the annexation of Crimea Russia.
But Zelenskyy reiterated his position on the Black Sea Peninsula on Tuesday, saying: “Ukraine will not recognize the occupation of Crimea. It is our territory, the territory of the inhabitants of Ukraine, there is nothing to discuss here. ”
Russia has also rejected some of the American suggestions, including a military presence for NATO countries in Ukraine.
But the familiar people with the case said Putin would potentially be ready to give ground on her previous request for total control over the four Ukrainian first -line regions – Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia – If the United States has made geopolitical concessions broader to membership in Moscow, as well as the recognition of his control of the Crime and Ukraine of membership in NATA.
Although Putin introduced constitutional amendments in 2020 unless Russia renounces affirmations of one of its territories, Konstantin Remchukov, an editor -in -chief aligned from Kremlin, said in a chronicle published on Sunday that Moscow could end the fights once he had led the forces of Ukraine outside the Russian region of Kursk.
Kyiv launched a foray into Kursk last year, but the Kremlin said on Saturday that the region was now “99.5%” under its control.
“When they release the last half-for a hundred, the troops can stop wherever they are when the news reaches them,” wrote Remchukov in Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
“We think that Trump understands this, thanks to Witkoff. And we hope that everything will happen by April 30 so that he can proudly declare that he did his peace mission in the first 100 days of his presidency.”
Putin declared the annexation of the four Ukrainian provinces in the Southeast during a sumptuous ceremony in Kremlin in September 2022, even if Russia did not control any at the time.
Russia still does not control any of the four regions, although it has kept the regional capitals of Donetsk and Luhansk since its first secret invasion of eastern Ukraine with the use of local proxy forces in 2014.
Although Russia has withdrawn from some of the territories it occupied in the fall of 2022, Putin said last year that he would accept no peace agreement unless Ukraine withdraws his troops from the front lines and did not give total control of the four provinces – including Zaporizhzhia City, an industrial city of 700,000 forces that it has never held, but regularly.
The previous requests of Moscow for a peace agreement have included a commitment from Ukraine to remain neutral and to abandon its aspirations of NATO, to the recognition of Russian claims in annexed territories, to a reparation of Western sanctions and to a reduction in NATO forces in the nearby member states of Russia.
A spokesperson for the United States Department of State said they could not comment on the “substance of negotiations”.
Additional James Politi report in Washington and Fabrice Deprez in Kyiv
