According to three Russian sources familiar with the negotiations, President Vladimir Putin has established conditions for ending the war in Ukraine that include a written commitment from Western leaders to cease NATO’s eastward expansion and the partial lifting of sanctions imposed on Russia.
U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to end the conflict, the deadliest in Europe since World War II. In recent remarks, he has shown increasing frustration with President Putin, warning that the Russian leader is “playing with fire” by not engaging in ceasefire talks with Kyiv while Russian forces gain ground.
Following a conversation lasting over two hours last week between Presidents Putin and Trump, Putin indicated an agreement to collaborate with Ukraine on a memorandum outlining the framework for a peace accord, including a timeline for a ceasefire. Russia states it is currently drafting its version of this memorandum but has not provided an estimated completion time. Kyiv and several European governments have accused Moscow of deliberately delaying the process as its troops advance in eastern Ukraine.
“Putin is ready to make peace but not at any price,” stated a senior Russian source with knowledge of Kremlin thinking, speaking anonymously. This source and two others indicated that President Putin seeks a written guarantee from major Western powers ensuring NATO will not expand further eastward. This is understood to mean a formal agreement excluding Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, and other former Soviet republics from NATO membership.
The sources also reported that Russia demands Ukraine’s neutrality, the removal of certain Western sanctions, a resolution regarding frozen Russian sovereign assets in the West, and protections for Russian-speaking individuals within Ukraine. The initial source suggested that if President Putin concludes he cannot achieve a peace deal on his terms, he will aim to demonstrate to both Ukraine and Europe through military successes that “peace tomorrow will be even more painful.”
The Kremlin has not responded to a request for comment on this report from Reuters. President Putin and other Russian officials have consistently stated that any peace agreement must address the “root causes” of the conflict, a Russian euphemism referring to NATO enlargement and Western support for Ukraine.
Kyiv has consistently maintained that Russia should not have the authority to veto its aspirations to join the NATO alliance. Ukraine asserts that it requires robust security guarantees from the West to deter any potential future Russian aggression. President Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration has not commented on this report.
NATO has historically stated that it will not alter its “open door” policy in response to demands from Moscow. A spokesperson for the 32-member alliance did not provide a response to questions from Reuters.
President Putin ordered the deployment of tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022, following eight years of conflict in eastern Ukraine between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian forces. Currently, Russia controls slightly less than one-fifth of Ukrainian territory. While Russian advances have accelerated in the past year, the war has inflicted significant costs on both Russia and Ukraine in terms of casualties and military expenditure. Reuters reported in January that President Putin was increasingly concerned about economic distortions within Russia’s wartime economy, including labor shortages and high interest rates implemented to control inflation. The price of oil, a key component of Russia’s economy, has steadily decreased this year.
President Trump, who has often emphasized his friendly relationship with President Putin and believes the Russian leader desires peace, has cautioned that Washington could impose further sanctions if Moscow delays efforts to reach a settlement. On social media, President Trump recently suggested that President Putin had “gone absolutely CRAZY” by launching a significant aerial attack on Ukraine last week.
The first source mentioned that if President Putin identified a tactical advantage on the battlefield, he would likely push further into Ukraine. The Kremlin reportedly believes Russia could sustain the conflict for years, regardless of Western sanctions and economic pressures.
A second source indicated that President Putin is now less inclined to compromise on territorial matters and is adhering to his public stance of wanting control over the entirety of the four regions in eastern Ukraine claimed by Russia. “Putin has toughened his position,” the second source stated regarding the issue of territory.
As Presidents Trump and Putin publicly debate the prospects for peace in Ukraine, it remains unclear whether the intensification of the war and the hardening of positions signal a determination to reach an agreement or the potential collapse of talks. In June of last year, President Putin outlined his initial terms for an immediate end to the war: Ukraine must abandon its NATO aspirations and withdraw all its forces from the entirety of the four Ukrainian regions claimed and mostly controlled by Russia.
In addition to Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, Russia currently controls almost all of Luhansk, over 70% of Donetsk, and portions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. It also occupies small areas of the Kharkiv and Sumy regions and poses a threat to Dnipropetrovsk.
Former U.S. President Joe Biden, Western European leaders, and Ukraine have condemned the invasion as an imperialistic land grab and have repeatedly pledged to defeat Russian forces. President Putin views the war as a pivotal moment in Moscow’s relations with the West, which he claims humiliated Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 by expanding NATO and encroaching on what he considers Russia’s sphere of influence.
At the 2008 Bucharest summit, NATO leaders agreed that Ukraine and Georgia would eventually become members. In 2019, Ukraine amended its constitution to commit to the goal of full membership in NATO and the European Union. President Trump has previously stated that U.S. support for Ukraine’s NATO membership bid was a contributing factor to the war and has indicated that Ukraine will not achieve membership. The U.S. State Department has not responded to requests for comment on this story.
President Putin, who assumed the top Kremlin position in 1999, has frequently reiterated the issue of NATO enlargement, including in his most detailed remarks regarding a possible peace settlement in 2024. In 2021, just two months before the Russian invasion, Moscow proposed a draft agreement with NATO members that, under Article 6, would commit NATO to “refrain from any further enlargement of NATO, including the accession of Ukraine as well as other States.” U.S. and NATO diplomats at the time stated that Russia could not have a veto over the alliance’s expansion.
Russia reportedly seeks a written pledge on NATO because President Putin believes Moscow was misled by the United States after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. According to two sources, then-U.S. Secretary of State James Baker assured Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 that NATO would not expand eastward. Former Central Intelligence Agency Director William J. Burns acknowledged in his memoirs that such a verbal promise was made but was never formalized and occurred before the collapse of the Soviet Union. NATO, established in 1949 to provide security against the Soviet Union, asserts it poses no threat to Russia, though its 2022 assessment identified Russia as the most “significant and direct threat” to the Euro-Atlantic area. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 led Finland to join NATO in 2023, followed by Sweden in 2024.
Western European leaders have repeatedly stated that a Russian victory in the Ukraine war could potentially lead to an attack on NATO itself, a scenario that would likely trigger a world war. Russia dismisses these claims as unfounded scaremongering but has also warned that the war in Ukraine could escalate into a broader conflict.
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