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New York Post
11-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
Putin proposes direct peace talks with Ukraine after three years of war
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday proposed direct talks with Ukraine on May 15 in Turkey that he said should be aimed at bringing a durable peace, an initiative welcomed by US President Donald Trump. Putin sent thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022, unleashing a war that has left hundreds of thousands of soldiers dead and triggering the gravest confrontation between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. The Russian leader, who has offered few concessions towards ending the conflict so far, said the talks in the Turkish city of Istanbul will be aimed at eliminating the root causes of the war and restoring a 'long-term, lasting peace' rather than simply a pause for rearmament. Advertisement 8 Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks to the media at the Kremlin in Moscow on May 11, 2025. GAVRIIL GRIGOROV/SPUTNIK/KREMLIN POOL/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock 'We are proposing that Kyiv resume direct negotiations without any preconditions,' Putin said from the Kremlin in the early hours of Sunday. 'We offer the Kyiv authorities to resume negotiations already on Thursday, in Istanbul.' Putin said that he would speak to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan later on Sunday about facilitating the talks, which he said could lead to a ceasefire. Advertisement 'Our proposal, as they say, is on the table. The decision is now up to the Ukrainian authorities and their curators, who are guided, it seems, by their personal political ambitions, and not by the interests of their peoples.' President Volodymyr Zelensky's office and Ukraine's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment on the proposal. In a message on the social network Truth Social, Trump hailed Putin's proposal as a positive for ending the war. 'A potentially great day for Russia and Ukraine!' Trump said. 'Think of the hundreds of thousands of lives that will be saved as this never ending 'bloodbath' hopefully comes to an end.' Advertisement 8 A large explosion lights up the night sky after a Russian ballistic missile struck Kyiv, Ukraine on April 24, 2025. REUTERS NO CEASEFIRE? Putin's proposal for direct talks with Ukraine came hours after major European powers demanded on Saturday in Kyiv that Putin agree to an unconditional 30-day ceasefire or face 'massive' new sanctions. Putin dismissed what he said was the attempt by some European powers to lay down 'ultimatums.' Russia, Putin said, had proposed several ceasefires, including a moratorium on striking energy facilities, an Easter ceasefire and most recently the 72-hour truce during the celebrations marking 80 years since victory in World War Two. Advertisement 8 President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky meet inside Saint Peter's Basilica in Vatican City on April 26, 2025. PRESIDENTIAL PRESS SERVICE HANDOUT HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock 8 Smoke billows out oof a destroyed apartment building after a Russian drone struck Shevchenkivskyi district of Kyiv on May 7, 2025. Ukrinform/Shutterstock Both Russia and Ukraine accused each other of violating the temporary truce proposals, including the May 8-10 ceasefire. Despite Putin's call for peace talks, Russia on Sunday launched a drone attack on Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine, injuring one person in the region surrounding the Ukrainian capital and damaging several private homes, Ukrainian officials said. Putin said that he does not rule out that during his proposed talks in Turkey both sides will agree on 'some new truces, a new ceasefire,' but one that would be the first step towards a 'sustainable' peace. 8 European leaders including French President Emmanuel Macron, Ukraine's Volodomyr Zelensky and the UK's Keir Starmer attend a meeting of the 'coalition of the willing in Kyiv on May 10, 2025. POOL/AFP via Getty Images PEACE? Putin, whose forces have advanced over the past year, has stood firm in his conditions for ending the war despite public and private pressure from Trump and repeated warnings from European powers. In June 2024, he said that Ukraine must officially drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw its troops from the entirety of the territory of four Ukrainian regions claimed by Russia. Advertisement Russian officials have also proposed that the US recognize Russia's control over about one-fifth of Ukraine and demanded that Ukraine remains neutral though Moscow has said it is not opposed to Kyiv's ambitions to join the European Union. 8 Ukrainian soldiers search for unexploded shells after a firefight with a Russian raiding group in Kyiv on Feb. 26, 2022. AFP via Getty Images Putin specifically mentioned the 2022 draft deal which Russia and Ukraine negotiated shortly after the Russian invasion started. Under that draft, a copy of which Reuters has seen, Ukraine should agree to permanent neutrality in return for international security guarantees from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council: Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States. Advertisement 'It was not Russia that broke off negotiations in 2022. It was Kyiv,' Putin said. 'Russia is ready to negotiate without any preconditions.' 8 Zelensky, Macron and Starmer attend an open-air exhibit of destroyed Russian military equipment. Maxym Marusenko/NurPhoto/Shutterstock He thanked China, Brazil, African and Middle Eastern countries and the United States for their efforts to mediate. Trump, who says he wants to be remembered as a peacemaker, has repeatedly said he wants to end the 'bloodbath' of the Ukraine war which his administration casts as a proxy war between the United States and Russia. Advertisement 'I will continue to work with both sides to make sure that it happens,' Trump said in his Truth Social post on Sunday. 'The USA wants to focus, instead, on Rebuilding and Trade. A BIG week upcoming!' 8 A Russian drone explosion lights of the sky of Kyiv on May 7, 2025. REUTERS Former US President Joe Biden, Western European leaders and Ukraine cast the invasion as an imperial-style land grab and 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, including Ukraine.
New York Post
28-04-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
Russia audaciously demands Ukraine be ‘demilitarized,' recognize 20% of nation no longer belongs to Kyiv as Putin refuses Trump's push for peace
Russia shamelessly demanded that the US lift its sanctions and that Kyiv be 'demilitarized' and recognize that 20% of Ukraine belongs to the Vladimir Putin-led nation as it refused President Trump's push for peace just days after his envoy returned to Moscow for yet another round of talks. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov insisted Monday that Russia will accept nothing less than total victory over Ukraine after Trump's Special Envoy Steve Witkoff made no progress in ending the country's three-year war when he met with Putin Friday. When asked by Brazilian newspaper O Globo 'what terms would Russia agree to come to the negotiation table with Ukraine,' Lavrov rattled off a list of Ukrainian red-line items — and mentioned no willingness to make even the smallest concessions, such as the US-proposed return of a small, occupied portion of Kharkiv. Advertisement Lavrov said 'the international recognition of Crimea, Sevastopol, (Donetsk), (Luhansk), Kherson and Zapor(i)zh(ia) regions as part of Russia' is an 'imperative,' insisting that not just the world — but also Kyiv itself — recognize 20% of Ukraine as sovereign Russian territory. 'All the commitments (Kyiv) assumes must be legally binding, contain enforcement mechanisms and be permanent,' he said. 3 Special Presidential Envoy Steve Witkoff has been unable to get Russian President Vladimir Putin to offer any concessions to end his three-year war on Ukraine. KRISTINA KORMILITSYNA/SPUTNIK/KREMLIN POOL/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock Advertisement That alone is a nonstarter. While Kyiv has shown a willingness to freeze the fighting lines where they are and acknowledge that Russia technically controls the occupied regions, its constitution outlaws the recognition of its land as belonging to any other nation. Since Witkoff began speaking with Russia roughly two months ago, Moscow has only upped its demands. For example, its desire to annex Ukraine's Kherson and Zaporizhia oblasts was never part of Putin's original goals of the war when his forces launched the full-scale invasion in 2021. 'The Kremlin is now explicitly demanding all of Kherson and Zaporizhia, which was not part of the 2021 demands,' said George Barros of the Institute for the Study of War. 'Bottom line, the Kremlin is rejecting Trump's proposals and articulating goals that require the war to go on or for Ukraine to surrender things for no reason. 'The only thing it is willing to negotiate are the terms of US capitulation and Ukrainian surrender.' Advertisement 3 Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov arrives for the BRICS foreign ministers' meeting at Itamaraty Palace in Rio de Janeiro on April 28. AP To that end, Lavrov also called for the West — including the US — to begin 'lifting sanctions, withdrawing lawsuits and cancelling arrest warrants, as well as returning Russian assets subjected to the so-called freeze in the West.' The foreign minister also said Russia would not begin talks with Ukraine until Kyiv makes yet another change to its constitution: disavowing its citizens' wishes to one day join NATO. While the measure has no achieve-by deadline, then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed a constitutional amendment in 2019 committing the country to eventually becoming a member of NATO and the European Union. Advertisement 'Russia proceeds from the premise (of) Kiev's non-accession to NATO,' Lavrov said. '… We will also insist on obtaining solid security guarantees for the Russian Federation in order to shield it from any threats emanating from hostile activities by NATO, the European Union and some of their member states along our western border. But Moscow has been critical of any security guarantees for Kyiv to ensure Russia doesn't further invade Ukraine — which for now aren't much more than a vague promise of the presence of European troops along the would-be frozen frontlines. Lavrov also doubled down on calls to restrict the size of the Ukrainian military — which his country has been unable to defeat in 38 months of war — saying Kyiv must 'demilitarize.' 3 Damaged private houses burn following Russia's air raid in Ukraine's Donetsk region on April 28. AP That provision, while floated by Russia in recent weeks, was not part of the Trump peace plan proposed to Russia and Ukraine last week. Though Trump has grown increasingly frustrated with Russia for its continued bombardment of Ukraine as he tries to reach a peace deal, the president has so far taken no punitive steps to attempt to force Moscow to back down from its untenable demands. The rejection of Trump's peace proposal comes after the Kremlin dubbed Putin's Friday meeting with Witkoff 'quite useful.'
