Putin open to truce talks with Trump, rules out concessions
Vladimir Putin is open to discussions with Donald Trump regarding a ceasefire in Ukraine, Reuters reported on Wednesday. However, the Russian president is excluding any significant territorial concessions and requires Kyiv to abandon its ambitions to join NATO.
Donald Trump returns to the White House, having previously claimed multiple times that he would be able to end the war in Ukraine very quickly. As Reuters points out, Moscow currently controls a portion of Ukraine the size of the American state of Virginia and is advancing at its fastest pace since the start of the invasion.
Putin excludes major territorial concessions
Sources connected to the Kremlin informed Reuters about the Russian leader's readiness to discuss a ceasefire in Ukraine with Donald Trump. According to their statements, Putin, however, demands that Kyiv abandon ambitions related to joining NATO. Moreover, he excludes any significant territorial concessions.
Russian officials, requesting anonymity, conveyed that the Kremlin could potentially agree to freeze the conflict along the front line. There is said to be negotiation room regarding the precise division of the four eastern regions—Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson. Earlier, in September 2022, Vladimir Putin announced the illegal annexation—officially incorporating the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, as well as the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, into Russia, citing a conducted referendum.
Two officials also claim that Russia may be open to withdrawing from relatively small patches of territory it holds in the Kharkiv and Mykolaiv regions, in the north and south of Ukraine.
The agency's sources emphasized that the decision by Joe Biden's administration to give Ukraine the green light to strike deep into Russia could complicate and delay any agreement. If no agreement on a ceasefire is reached, Russia will continue to fight.
"Putin has already said that freezing the conflict will not work in any way," a Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov earlier informed the agency. "And the missile authorisation is a very dangerous escalation on the part of the United States."
