Putin's demands for peace include an end to NATO enlargement, sources say
President Vladimir Putin's conditions for ending the war in Ukraine include a demand that Western leaders pledge in writing to stop enlarging NATO eastward and lift a chunk of sanctions on Russia, according to three Russian sources with knowledge of the negotiations.
U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he wants to end the deadliest European conflict since World War II and has shown increasing frustration with Putin in recent days, warning on Tuesday the Russian leader was "playing with fire" by refusing to engage in ceasefire talks with Kyiv as his forces made gains on the battlefield.
After speaking to Trump for more than two hours last week, Putin said he had agreed to work with Ukraine on a memorandum that would establish the contours of a peace accord, including the timing of a ceasefire. Russia says it is currently drafting its version of the memorandum and cannot estimate how long that will take.
Kyiv and European governments have accused Moscow of stalling while its troops advance in eastern Ukraine.
"Putin is ready to make peace but not at any price," said one senior Russian source with knowledge of top-level Kremlin thinking, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The three Russian sources said Putin wants a "written" pledge by major Western powers not to enlarge the U.S.-led NATO alliance eastward — shorthand for formally ruling out membership to Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova and other former Soviet republics. Russia also wants Ukraine to be neutral, some Western sanctions lifted, a resolution of the issue of frozen Russian sovereign assets in the West, and protection for Russian speakers in Ukraine, the three sources said.
The first source said that, if Putin realizes he is unable to reach a peace deal on his own terms, he will seek to show the Ukrainians and the Europeans by military victories that "peace tomorrow will be even more painful."
The Kremlin did not respond to a request for comment. Putin and Russian officials have repeatedly said any peace deal must address the "root causes" of the conflict — Russian shorthand for the issue of NATO enlargement and Western support for Ukraine.
Kyiv has repeatedly said that Russia should not be granted veto power over its aspirations to join the NATO alliance. Ukraine says it needs the West to give it a strong security guarantee with teeth to deter any future Russian attack. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's administration did not respond to a request for comment.
NATO has also in the past said that it will not change its "open door" policy just because Moscow demands it. A spokesperson for the 32-member alliance did not respond to questions.
Putin ordered tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022 after eight years of fighting in eastern Ukraine between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops.
Russia currently controls just under one fifth of the country. Though Russian advances have accelerated over the past year, the war is costing both Russia and Ukraine dearly in terms of casualties and military spending.
Reuters reported in January that Putin was growing concerned by the economic distortions in Russia's wartime economy, amid labor shortages and high interest rates imposed to curb inflation.
The price of oil, the bedrock of Russia's economy, has declined steadily this year. Trump, who prides himself on having friendly relations with Putin and has expressed his belief the Russian leader wants peace, has warned that Washington could impose further sanctions if Moscow delays efforts to find a settlement.
Trump suggested on social media on Sunday that Putin had "gone absolutely CRAZY" by unleashing a massive aerial attack on Ukraine last week.
The first source said that if Putin saw a tactical opportunity on the battlefield, he would push further into Ukraine — and that the Kremlin believed Russia could fight on for years no matter what sanctions and economic pain were imposed by the West. A second source said that Putin was now less inclined to compromise on territory and was sticking to his public stance that he wanted the entirety of four regions in eastern Ukraine claimed by Russia.
"Putin has toughened his position," the second source said of the question of territory.
A NATO flag flutters in front of the Spanish NASAMS air defense system during the "Latvian Shield 2025" military exercise on the bank of Riga hydroelectric power plant's water reservoir near Salaspils, Latvia, on Wednesday. |
REUTERS
As Trump and Putin joust in public over the outlook for peace in Ukraine, it could not be determined whether the intensification of the war and the toughening of positions heralds determination to reach a deal or the collapse of talks.
In June last year, Putin set out his opening terms for an immediate end to the war: Ukraine must drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw all of its troops from the entirety of the territory of four Ukrainian regions claimed and mostly controlled by Russia.
In addition to Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, Russia currently controls almost all of Luhansk, more than 70% of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. It also occupies a sliver of the Kharkiv and Sumy regions, and is threatening Dnipropetrovsk.
Former U.S. President Joe Biden, Western European leaders and Ukraine cast the invasion as an imperial-style land grab and have repeatedly vowed to defeat Russian forces.
Putin casts the war as a watershed moment in Moscow's relations with the West, which he says humiliated Russia after the Soviet Union fell in 1991 by enlarging NATO and encroaching on what he considers Moscow's sphere of influence.
At the 2008 Bucharest summit, NATO leaders agreed that Ukraine and Georgia would one day become members. Ukraine in 2019 amended its constitution committing to the path of full membership of NATO and the European Union. Trump has said that previous U.S. support for Ukraine's NATO membership bid was a cause of the war, and has indicated that Ukraine will not get membership. The U.S. State Department did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Putin, who rose to the top Kremlin job in 1999, has repeatedly returned to the issue of NATO enlargement, including in his most detailed remarks about a possible peace in 2024.
In 2021, just two months before the Russian invasion, Moscow proposed a draft agreement with NATO members that, under Article 6, would bind NATO to "refrain from any further enlargement of NATO, including the accession of Ukraine as well as other States."
U.S. and NATO diplomats said at the time that Russia could not have a veto on expansion of the alliance. Russia wants a pledge on NATO in writing because Putin thinks Moscow was misled by the United States after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall when U.S. Secretary of State James Baker assured Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 that NATO would not expand eastward, two of the sources said.
There was such a verbal promise, former Central Intelligence Agency Director Director William J. Burns said in his memoires, but it was never formalized — and it was made at a time when the collapse of the Soviet Union had not occurred.
NATO, founded in 1949 to provide security against the Soviet Union, says it poses no challenge to Russia — though its 2022 assessment of peace and security in the Euro-Atlantic area identified Russia as the most "significant and direct threat."
Russia's invasion of Ukraine that year prompted Finland to join NATO in 2023, followed by Sweden in 2024. Western European leaders have repeatedly said that if Russia wins the Ukraine war, it could one day attack NATO, itself — a step that would trigger a world war. Russia dismisses such claims as baseless scaremongering, but has also warned the war in Ukraine could escalate into a broader conflict.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Kyodo News
37 minutes ago
- Kyodo News
Japan, U.S. yet to find common ground on tariffs but want quick deal
By Takuya Karube, KYODO NEWS - 30 minutes ago - 12:50 | All, Japan, World Japan and the United States have "yet to find common ground" on tariff issues, Tokyo's top negotiator said Friday, indicating that there remain many differences between the sides, but they still aim to clinch a win-win deal in mid-June. After holding talks with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in Washington, Ryosei Akazawa told reporters that he believes "further progress" was made. They will also "continue coordinating energetically to achieve an agreement that benefits both Japan and the United States," Akazawa said. Akazawa, however, noted that no decision has been made on whether there will be another round of negotiations next week or beyond. He suggested it depends on the schedule of the U.S. Cabinet members who are due to hold high-level trade talks with China in London on Monday. Akazawa, Japan's minister for economic revitalization, and Bessent sat down for about 45 minutes to explore whether it may be feasible for the countries' leaders to reach a trade agreement when they are expected to meet in person in about 10 days. With Lutnick, whom Akazawa also met a day earlier for about two hours, the Japanese minister said he held separate talks of approximately similar length addressing three major areas -- trade, nontariff barriers and economic security. Akazawa declined to reveal details of the negotiations, including which issues had seen progress. However, Akazawa, as he has done consistently in the ongoing talks, said he had reiterated Tokyo's position that the Trump administration's additional tariffs must be removed as quickly as possible, as the measures are having a serious impact on the Japanese economy. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and U.S. President Donald Trump plan to hold a meeting around the time of the three-day Group of Seven summit in Canada, which starts on June 15. Akazawa, who arrived in the U.S. capital on Thursday for the third straight week and a fifth round of ministerial tariff talks, said the leaders will meet after hearing how far discussions have progressed. Under Trump's so-called reciprocal tariff regime, announced April 2, almost all countries in the world have been hit by a baseline duty of 10 percent, with Japan facing an additional country-specific tariff of 14 percent for a total rate of 24 percent. Along with other countries, Japan has also been affected by the Trump administration's extra 25 percent tariff on automobiles and other sector-based levies implemented on national security grounds. Japan has presented a package of proposals to the United States since the first round of their ministerial talks in mid-April. The package includes joint efforts to strengthen supply chains for semiconductors and critical minerals, cooperation in shipbuilding, expanding imports of U.S. farm products to Japan, and simplification of its safety and environmental requirements for foreign-made cars. Japan does not impose tariffs on imported cars, trucks or buses. The Trump administration has claimed, however, that American automakers' limited penetration into Japan's market is due to nontariff barriers, such as nonacceptance of certain U.S. standards. Related coverage: Japan calls for tariff rethink in talks with U.S. commerce chief Trump's steel tariff hike not raised in Japan-U.S. talks: negotiator Japan, U.S. agree tariff talks making progress toward deal
Yomiuri Shimbun
an hour ago
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Trump Travel Ban Rattles Immigrant Communities across U.S.
Valerie Plesch/For The Washington Post A woman carries a platter and groceries for Eid al-Adha as she leaves the Afghan Market in Alexandria, Virginia, on Thursday. Immigrants from the dozen countries targeted by President Donald Trump's travel ban have put down roots in all 50 states, many escaping violence or political instability in their homelands. They left spouses, children and friends behind, hoping one day to be reunited. Overnight, those hopes have been shattered. Even plans for visits to or from relatives – for graduations, weddings or funerals – are now very uncertain. 'There's already this heightened awareness and heightened atmosphere of fear,' said Amaha Kassa, executive director of the nonprofit African Communities Together. In his executive order, Trump said the ban was based on 'foreign policy, national security, and counterterrorism goals.' Yet immigrants like Roozbeh Farahanipour, who left Iran in 2000 and now owns three restaurants in Los Angeles, said Trump's action will punish individuals and families who pose no threat to the United States. Farahanipour was fielding calls Thursday from fellow Iranians in his community and back home, who are terrified about what the ban means for their future. His own story, he said, reflects a quintessential American success story. 'I want other people to follow me,' he added. 'I don't want to be the last American Dream.' Haitians in Ohio Gangs have taken over much of Haiti since the 2021 assassination of its president, pushing families to seek safety anywhere they can. Yet those who fled the violence now face a different danger in the United States: The temporary protected status (TPS) that has allowed hundreds of thousands of Haitians to work in the U.S. is set to expire in August. Yvena Jean François is among those whose future is at risk. She hadn't heard about the president's travel ban until she clocked into work Thursday at an Amazon warehouse in Springfield, Ohio, where many of those laboring around her were also Haitian. Everyone has been scared since Trump's election, she said, with the travel ban only the latest blow. Innocent civilians are the ones trying to escape Haiti, she noted, and her friends back home say the situation has only deteriorated since she left. François, a journalist, saw the carnage firsthand as she documented events. 'Following all the news,' she said, 'is nothing but stress.' As many as 15,000 Haitians have settled in her county, according to local estimates, with most of the newcomers arriving legally in the past five years. As Springfield pushed to revive its once-prosperous manufacturing sector, business leaders aimed recruitment efforts at Haitians to alleviate labor shortages. Some plants in town now employ Creole-speaking interpreters. Haitian restaurants, convenience stores and hair salons have opened their doors. At the same time, the burst of arrivals crowded medical clinics and classrooms, sparking some complaints in the city of roughly 60,000 and attention from far-right pundits. Trump blasted the immigrants last year during the campaign, saying they had 'destroyed' Springfield. The city's Republican mayor pushed back against the 'mischaracterization of our city.' Under the still-glaring political spotlight, community leaders say many Haitians in town are scared to venture out beyond school, work and church. The new ban may only intensify their fears. François, 39, prays that a judge will rule to preserve her protected status, as was the case in 2018. The Trump administration, she said, 'keeps making life harder for us.' Afghans and Somalis in Texas Valerie Plesch/For The Washington Post An employee at the Afghan Market in Alexandria carries a platter of homemade pastries on the day before Eid al-Adha. Thousands of Afghans raced to escape their country in 2021 when U.S. troops withdrew and the Taliban assumed power. In Somalia, another country on the travel ban list, humanitarian groups say the government suppresses citizens' basic rights. Immigrants from both of these places settled in Houston's Gulfton neighborhood, filling apartments and working to rebuild their lives. In one small strip mall here that caters to Afghans – with a clothing store, barbershop, restaurant and bakery offering familiarity – workers set trays of cookies outside as a steady stream of families flowed through Thursday, shopping for the Eid al-Adha holiday. Hasebullah Akhundzada, 20, migrated from Kabul four years ago, first to Boston, then to Houston. He left most relatives behind, in a country still controlled by the extremist Taliban regime. 'The whole family is over there,' he said as he helped customers at the Afghan Bazaar peruse glittering bangles, leather sandals, and racks of colorful embroidered shalwar kameez, traditional Afghan dress. In the barbershop at the back of the store, Said Jallal, 27, a security guard from outside Kabul, said that when he heard about the travel ban, he immediately thought of his wife, brother and father. All remain in Afghanistan. A few doors down in the same strip mall, Ali Ahmed nursed tea at Chai n Paan, a cafe broadcasting Al Jazeera and Arabic language news on several big screens. Ahmed, 41, came from Somalia 25 years ago after spending a decade in a Kenyan refugee camp. His wife and six children, ages 2 through 11, have been visiting Somalia for a family wedding and are due to return by summer's end – which makes the travel ban 'scary.' All have U.S. passports, he said, but 'you never know what's going to happen.' He has his own travel horror stories, though. He says immigration officials always pull him aside at airports for added screening in windowless rooms – traumatizing encounters that in recent years have taken seven to 10 hours, forcing him to miss flights and causing 'humiliation' and 'stigma.' He now shows up at airports five hours in advance. 'It makes you think you're doing something wrong, even though you're not.' And with the travel ban, he predicted, 'this is going to get worse, much worse.' Iranians in California On the west side of Los Angeles, in a neighborhood known as Tehrangeles, Iranian Americans received news of the president's ban with a mixture of resignation and dread. Iran was targeted in Trump's 2017 ban, and the country is in the middle of tumultuous negotiations with the United States over its nuclear program. Many figured it was only a matter of time until the travel prohibition was revived. Farahanipour recounted how he was imprisoned and tortured for his role helping to lead the Iranian student uprisings of 1999. He sought exile in the U.S. after his country's government issued a death sentence against him. From a table inside his Mary and Robb's Westwood Cafe, he said Trump's order is overly broad and will punish average Iranians who are just looking to visit relatives, receive medical care or study in the U.S. 'I don't think they're going to make the country safer,' he said. 'It's a blanket ban for normal, random people.' Alex Helmi, another Iranian business owner, said the policy will be especially harmful for Iranian students – who for years have studied in the United States as part of a cultural and academic exchange that Helmi still believes will ultimately lead to a more open Iran. 'Students come and see the democracy here and they go back,' he said. 'It's good for our country.' Down the street at Shahrzad Travel, a travel agency that primarily serves the city's Iranian community – the world's largest outside Iran – phones were ringing nonstop Thursday morning. Sherry Tahouri, the company's owner, said she is telling her clients that they must wait and see whether the president's order changes or is challenged. 'I think it's wrong,' she said. 'But I cannot say what he should do or not because I don't have control.' Stuck in limbo Krish O'Mara Vignarajah, who leads Global Refuge, a resettlement agency that handles refugee placements across the U.S., said Thursday that the organization was fielding calls from terrified clients who don't know whether their cases will proceed or family members will ever make it to the U.S. The emotional toll is enormous, she said, adding anxiety to families who 'are putting down roots and so eager to become contributing Americans.' 'People who have spent years doing everything we asked of them, navigating an already complex system, now face indefinite limbo,' she said. 'For many immigrants from these countries, this order is equally personal. It effectively says, because of where you're from, your family doesn't deserve the same chance to be together. You don't deserve the chance to make your case.' Late Thursday afternoon outside an Afghan supermarket in Alexandria, Virginia, Parwin Azizi Omari, 38, waited with her four children to be picked up from her grocery shopping for Eid al-Adha. It had taken her family a couple of years to get from Afghanistan to the U.S. They fled after the Taliban took over their country, first to Canada, then to New York and finally to the D.C. area, where she found a job as a cook at a local snack company. She has been grateful for the opportunity to rebuild her life. 'In our country, it's not safe,' she said. And since Trump suspended refugee admissions earlier this year and froze aid to resettle refugees, friends and former colleagues back home have become only more desperate. One woman she knew killed herself, Azizi Omari said. 'It's very difficult, because they are waiting for a long, long term,' she said. Now, they probably will have to wait even longer. Kassa, the executive director of African Communities Together, is focusing on supporting the large pockets of Sudanese and Eritreans in the U.S. He fears the ban will prompt some to withdraw from civic life and be less willing to engage with government services. 'What this does, he said, 'is make a region that feels like home to many African immigrants feel less like home.'
Yomiuri Shimbun
an hour ago
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Cards in Deck: Trump Keeps Stack of Orders Ready to Play as Needed
Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office on May 23. Months before President Donald Trump issued a travel ban on individuals from more than a dozen countries, his team of lawyers and advisers had already started crafting the ban, a process that was underway before he stepped back into the Oval Office in January. Trump announced the proclamation Wednesday night, three days after an Egyptian man with an expired tourist visa was charged with attacking pro-Israel demonstrators in Boulder, Colorado. Trump said the crime 'underscores the danger posed to our country by foreign nationals not properly vetted.' 'We don't want 'em,' Trump said in a video announcing the ban. But a White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that Wednesday night's proclamation 'was not a direct response to' the Colorado attack. Trump was always going to implement a travel ban, his advisers say. The announcement was the latest example of how the Trump administration has dipped into its large reserve of proclamations and executive orders – many of which have been long in the making – to drive its chosen narrative, push the president's priorities and sometimes change the subject when news coverage focuses on topics that Trump officials prefer to downplay. Throughout Trump's second term, White House staff have maintained a stash of executive orders and proclamations they can deploy depending on the themes of the moment and the narratives they want to shape, a senior White House official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to talk frankly about internal strategies. Some orders are put into the calendar well in advance, the official said. Others are teed up the night before they are signed depending on impulse, political strategy and the overall mood within the White House, the official said. On this occasion, Trump invoked the recent attack in Colorado as an example of why the new measure was needed, even though Egypt is not one of the countries listed in the proclamation. Wednesday evening was the time the president and his team chose to hit the go button on the long-planned travel ban – making the announcement as Trump and his White House team were pushing Congress to embrace his sweeping One Big Beautiful Bill legislation, and as Elon Musk, who until recently was a top Trump ally, was increasing his criticism of Trump's bill. During Trump's first term, he implemented a similar travel ban just a week after taking office. It was later revoked by President Joe Biden. A number of the executive orders Trump has signed this term were written during the presidential transition. Wednesday's travel ban had been in the works since soon after Trump reentered office this January, four White House officials told The Washington Post. Broad plans to implement such a ban were underway even earlier, as Trump's lawyers crafted an executive order he signed on his first day in office, requiring the Cabinet to begin developing a potential travel ban. Some of the president's recent executive actions sat in the pile for much less time: Two other proclamations issued Wednesday night were the result of the White House quickly springing into action to seize on recent events. One restricted international students and scholars from entering the country to attend or teach at Harvard University. The other ordered the White House counsel to open an investigation into whether Biden and his staff covered up his cognitive decline. Those orders were 'new,' a White House official said. The Harvard proclamation came just days after a federal judge blocked an earlier effort by the administration to revoke the university's ability to host foreign students and scholars, a critical source of money for Harvard. The order to investigate Biden and his use of the autopen – a tool presidents have long used to sign certain documents and executive orders – followed a flurry of news coverage in recent weeks alleging Biden's cognitive state was in decline throughout his time in office. Trump has alleged without evidence that Biden's staff used the autopen to sign documents without the president's knowledge. Trump's approach to executive action has differed notably from that of his predecessors, who resorted to it at times but never with the intense frequency of Trump's first months in office. In less than five months, Trump has signed 157 executive orders and 62 proclamations, according to data from the Federal Register, a pace faster than any modern president. Trump surpassed the pace of his first term, when he signed an average of 55 orders a year, according to data compiled by the American Presidency Project. White House staff secretary Will Scharf is responsible for managing the flow of orders onto Trump's desk. When orders and proclamations are signed publicly, Scharf, standing at Trump's side, serves the role not only of a lawyer, but something akin to a game show host sidekick – placing each leather-bound order in front of Trump and announcing what every order accomplishes. Trump, meanwhile, will grab a thick black marker from a small box of them placed by his right hand, positioning himself in the stance to begin signing as Scharf gives his summary. Trump has already signed more orders than President Barack Obama in either term, and at the current clip, is likely to surpass this year Biden's sum of 162 orders over four years. Trump's use of the executive order mirrors Franklin D. Roosevelt, who signed an average of 307 orders a year during his more than 12 years in office. However, FDR also worked with Congress to implement his agenda through legislation. Trump signed just five bills into law in the first 100 days of his presidency.
