The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has proposed direct conversations with Ukraine in Istanbul on May 15, “without previous conditions” to achieve “lasting peace” and “eliminate the root causes” of the three -year conflict.
The offer, delivered early on Sunday, occurred hours after the leaders of Ukraine, France, Germany, Poland and the United Kingdom asked for a high unconditional fire of 30 days to start on Monday.
The leaders, who met in kyiv, said that their call is backed by the president of the United States, Donald Trump, and threatened new “massive” sanctions against Moscow if he did not agree with his plan.
Putin did not explicitly approach that call in his comments, but criticized the “European ultimatum” and “anti-ruse rhetoric” before describing the counterproposal of the renewed Russian negotiations of the UKSIA-UKRAINE.
“We are proposing that Kyiv renow direct negotiations without prior conditions,” the Russian president told journalists. “We offer Kyiv authorities to resume negotiations and on Thursday, in Istanbul.”
Putin said he would talk to the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan later on Sunday about facilitating conversations.
There was no immediate response from Ukraine to the proposal.
But the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said he was ready for peace conversations, but only after he is in the fire.
The large -scale invasion of Russia of Ukraine, which began in February 2022, has left hundreds of thousands of dead soldiers and triggered the most serious confrontation between Russia and the West from the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.
Russian and Ukrainian negotiators had direct conversations in Istanbul in the first weeks of the conflict, but could not accept to stop fighting.
Putin said that Russia was proposing to restart conversations in an attempt to “eliminate the root causes of the conflict” and “achieve the restoration of long -term lasting peace” instead of simply a pause for rearmament.
“We do not exclude that during these conversations we can agree in some high fire,” he added.
Putin, whose forces have advanced during the past year, has faced greater public and private pressure from Trump, as well as warnings of European powers to end the war.
But he has offered few concessions and has remained firm in his conditions to finish the war.
In June 2024, Putin said that Ukraine must officially eliminate his NATO ambitions and withdraw his troops from the entire territory of four Ukrainian regions claimed by Russia.
Russian officials have also proposed that the United States recognizes Russia's control over approximately one fifth of Ukraine and demanded that Ukraine remain neutral, although Moscow has said that kyiv's ambitions is not opposed to join the European Union.
Putin specifically mentioned the draft of the 2022 agreement of the conversations in Istanbul.
According to that draft, Ukraine should accept permanent neutrality in exchange for international security guarantees of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
“It was not Russia who interrupted the negotiations in 2022. It was kyiv,” Putin said. “Russia is ready to negotiate without previous conditions.”
He thanked China, Brazil, the African and the United States for the United States for their efforts to mediate.
Russia, added Putin, had proposed several cessation of fire, including a moratorium on surprising energy facilities, a high Easter fire, and more recently, the 72 -hour truce during the celebrations that mark 80 years since the victory in World War II, but accused Ukraine of repeatedly violating the cessation of fire.
He said that during the Alto El Fuego de Mayo, Ukraine had attacked Russia with 524 aerial drones, 45 sea drones, several western missiles and that Russia had repelled five attacks against Russian regions.
Ukraine has also accused Russia of repeatedly violating her own fire.
Earlier on Saturday, for the first time, the leaders of France, Germany, Poland and the United Kingdom traveled together to Ukraine on a visit that Zelenskyy said “a very important signal.”
The five leaders, after their meeting in kyiv, issued a statement that requested a high fire “that lasts at least 30 days” since Monday, to leave space for a diplomatic impulse to end the war.
“A high unconditional fire by definition cannot be subject to any condition. If Russia asks for such conditions, this can only be considered as an effort to prolong war and undermine diplomacy,” reads the statement.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said that the United States would take the initiative to monitor the high fire, with the support of European countries and threatened “mass sanctions … prepared and coordinated between Europeans and Americans” if Russia violates the truce.
Meanwhile, the retired Lieutenant Keith Kellogg, Trump's special envoy to Ukraine, said on Saturday that a “integral” fire of 30 days, which covers the attacks from the air, the earth, the sea and the infrastructure, “will begin the process to finish the largest and longest war in Europe since World War II.”
Trump, who says he wants to be remembered as a peacemaker, has repeatedly said that he wants to end the “bloodbath” of the Ukraine War, which his administration presents as a proxy war between the United States and Russia.
The former president of the United States, Joe Biden, the leaders of Western Europe and Ukraine issued the invasion as a hoarding of imperial -style lands and repeatedly committed themselves to defeat the Russian forces.
Putin launches war as a decisive moment in Moscow's relations with the West, which as he humiliated Russia after the Soviet Union fell in 1991 by expanding NATO and invades what considers the sphere of influence of Moscow, including Ukraine.
