Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed a direct meeting with Ukraine in Istanbul on May 15th. This is “no prerequisite” to achieve “endless peace” and “eliminate the root cause” of the three-year conflict.
The offer, delivered early on Sunday, comes hours after leaders from Ukraine, France, Germany, Poland and the UK called for an unconditional 30-day ceasefire.
Leaders who met in Kiev said their calls were supported by President Donald Trump and threatened new “massive” sanctions against Moscow if they disagree with their plans.
However, Putin rejected the proposal and outlined the replacement of the Russian Ukraine renewal after denounced Europe’s “ultimate” and “anti-Russian rhetoric.”
“We are proposing that Kyiv will resume direct negotiations without prerequisites,” the Russian president told reporters. “We are offering Kiev authorities to resume negotiations on Thursday in Istanbul.”
Putin said he will talk with Turkish President Recept Tayyip Erdogan about promoting discussions.
There was no immediate response from Ukraine to the proposal.
Ukrainian President Voldimi Zelensky previously said that he was prepared for peace talks, but only after the ceasefire was in place.
“No prerequisites”
A full-scale invasion of Russia’s Ukraine, which began in February 2022, killed hundreds of thousands of soldiers, causing the most serious conflict between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.
In the first weeks of the conflict, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators met in person in Istanbul, but did not agree to halt the battle.
Putin said Russia is proposing to resume consultations to “achieve the underlying causes of conflict” and “to achieve a long-term, lasting recovery of peace,” rather than simply suspending the recontract “to achieve a long-term restoration of peace.”
“We are not excluded from agreeing to some new ceasefires during these consultations,” he added.
With military advances over the past year, Putin faces rising public and private pressure from Trump and is facing warnings from European powers to end the war.
However, he offered little concessions and stood firm on his terms to end the war.
In June 2024, Putin said Ukraine must formally remove NATO ambitions and withdraw troops from all the territory of the four Ukrainian regions asserted by Russia.
Russian officials also proposed that the US recognizes Russian control over about a fifth of Ukraine, saying that Ukraine is not opposed to Kiev’s ambitions to join the European Union, but demanded that Ukraine remain neutral.
Putin specifically mentioned the 2022 draft deal from his speech in Istanbul.
The draft stipulated that Ukraine should agree to permanent neutrality in return for international security guarantees from five permanent members of the UN Security Council, China, France, Russia, the UK and the US.
“It wasn’t Russia that destroyed the negotiations in 2022. It was Kiev,” Putin said.
“Russia is ready to negotiate without prerequisites.”
Putin added that Russia had proposed several ceasefires, including an impressive energy facility at the celebration that marked 80 years since its victory in World War II, and a 72-hour truce, most recently proposed a 72-hour truce, but Ukraine accused them of repeatedly violent ceasefires.
He said during the May ceasefire, Ukraine attacked Russia with 524 air drones, 45 sea drones and many western missiles, causing Russia to repel five attacks on Russian regions.
Ukraine has also accused Russia of repeatedly violating its own ceasefire.
Trump Factor
Anatol Lieben, director of the Eurasian Program at the Quincy National Institute for Responsibility, told Al Jazeera they were trying to take responsibility for each other for not agreeing to a ceasefire deal amid pressure to end the war.
“Trump threatened to leave the peace process without any settlement or agreement in the ceasefire anytime soon. And the question is who will blame him for failure? If he further blames the Russians, our aid will follow Ukraine and the sanctions he threatened will be strengthened,” Lieben said.
“But if he criticizes Ukraine more, he will, as previously done, suspend our aid to Ukraine and intelligence reporting support, and of course, will greatly weaken Ukraine’s military status and strengthen that of Russia.
Earlier on Saturday, leaders from France, Germany, Poland and the UK travelled together to Ukraine for the first time on a visit that Zelenskyy said had sent a “very important signal.”
The five leaders held a meeting in Kiev and issued a statement calling for a ceasefire that “will last for at least 30 days” from Monday, leaving room for diplomatic push to end the war.
“An unconditional ceasefire cannot be under any conditions, and if Russia demands such conditions, this can be viewed as an effort to extend the war and undermine diplomacy,” the statement read.
French President Emmanuel Macron said the US led the US to monitor the proposed ceasefire with support from European countries and threatened that if Russia violated the ceasefire, it was “prepared and coordinated between Europeans and Americans.”
Meanwhile, Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, said on Saturday that it would be a “comprehensive” 30-day ceasefire that will “begin the process of ending Europe’s largest and longest war since World War II,” covering attacks from air, land, sea and infrastructure.
Trump, who wants to be remembered as a peace manager, has repeatedly said he wants to end the “bloody” of the Ukrainian war that his administration threw as a proxy war between the US and Russia.
Former US President Joe Biden, Western European leader, Ukraine, portrays the invasion as an imperial-style land grab and repeatedly pledges to defeat Russian troops.
Meanwhile, Putin is casting war west as a turning point in relations with Moscow. He says that the Soviet Union humiliated after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 by infringing on the expansion of NATO and considering Moscow’s influence, including Ukraine.