Russia’s President Vladimir Putin gives a press conference following his meeting Thursday with Belarus’ President Alexander Lukashenko at the Kremlin in Moscow. Sofya Sandurskaya TASS/Sipa USA
BERLIN -- President Vladimir Putin of Russia said Thursday that he was open to the idea of a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine but that a number of “questions” must still be resolved.
His remarks, at a news conference in Moscow, signaled he was in no hurry to go along with a truce and came as U.S. officials were in Russia to discuss the ceasefire proposal that Ukraine has already agreed to.
“The idea itself is the right one, and we definitely support it,” Putin said. “But there are questions that we need to discuss, and I think that we need to talk them through with our American colleagues and partners.”
Those questions, Putin said, included the fate of Ukraine’s forces occupying part of Russia’s Kursk region, whether Ukraine would be able to continue receiving arms shipments during the 30-day truce, and how the ceasefire would be monitored and enforced.
It was the first time that Putin had publicly addressed the ceasefire offer. He is expected to meet with President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, later Thursday -- and Putin said he may soon speak with Trump.
Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesperson, had said earlier that Russia would only respond to the ceasefire proposal after talks with the United States in which U.S. officials would lay out that plan in more detail.
“After we receive this information -- not through the press but through bilateral dialogue -- then the time will come for thinking it over and formulating a position,” Peskov said.
Here’s what else to know:
-- Fighting in Kursk: Moscow’s forces have intensified a campaign to push Ukrainian forces out of the Kursk region of Russia, the border area where Ukraine’s troops occupied several hundred square miles of territory in a surprise incursion in August. On Thursday, Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed Russian forces had retaken Sudzha, the main population center in the region that was captured by Ukraine last year. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine’s military.
-- Putin’s dilemma: The Russian leader has seen a dizzying reversal in his geopolitical fortunes over the last month as Trump realigned U.S. foreign policy in Russia’s favor and antagonized U.S. allies. But the emergence of a joint ceasefire proposal from the United States and Ukraine complicates things for Putin, deepening the tension between his desires for a far-reaching victory in Ukraine and close ties with Trump.
-- On the front line: Dressed in fatigues, Putin visited a command post near the front in Kursk late Wednesday to cheer on his military’s ejection of Ukrainian forces from much of the territory they had been occupying in the Russian border region.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Copyright 2025
This story was originally published March 13, 2025 at 12:59 PM.