Russia
demands details from US before decision on Ukraine ceasefire
Marco Rubio
confirms US will talk to Moscow on Wednesday about results of US-Ukraine talks
Pjotr Sauer
Wed 12 Mar
2025 13.37 CET
The Kremlin
has declined to commit to an immediate 30-day ceasefire in the war with
Ukraine, stating that Vladimir Putin must first be briefed by the US before
deciding whether the proposal would be acceptable to Russia.
The Kremlin
spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said Moscow was awaiting “detailed information”
from Washington after talks between senior US and Ukrainian officials in Saudi
Arabia, where Kyiv declared its readiness to implement an immediate ceasefire.
“We assume
that secretary of state [Marco] Rubio and adviser [Michael] Waltz through
various channels in the coming days will inform us on the negotiations that
took place and the understandings reached,” Peskov told reporters in Moscow,
adding that the Kremlin could organise a call between Putin and Donald Trump on
short notice if needed.
The US
secretary of state, Marco Rubio, confirmed the US would have contact with
Russia on Wednesday about the ceasefire agreement reached with Ukraine.
“We all
eagerly await the Russian response and urge them strongly to consider ending
all hostilities,” Rubio said during a stop in Ireland. “If they say no, then
obviously we’ll have to examine everything and sort of figure out where we
stand in the world and what their true intentions are,” he added.
The White
House Middle East envoy and close Trump ally Steve Witkoff is expected to
travel to Moscow later this week for a meeting with the Russian leader, though
the Kremlin has yet to confirm this.
Ukraine,
meanwhile, said it plans to hold further discussions with the US next week on
the contours of a temporary 30-day ceasefire.
“We have
already agreed that next week, at the technical expert level, teams will begin
discussing all the details,” said Andriy Yermak, Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of
staff, late on Tuesday evening, after high-stakes talks in Jeddah that also
prompted the US to lift its restrictions on military aid and intelligence
sharing.
Yermak added
that the US would now bring to Russia the proposals developed during the talks.
“After this meeting, the key is now in Russia’s hands. And the whole world will
see who truly wants peace and who only talks about it,” he said.
It remains
unclear if Putin is ready to accept the ceasefire in its current form.
Some Russian
officials in Moscow indicated scepticism about the prospect of a ceasefire,
saying that Moscow was unwilling to stop the fighting as its forces this week
made rapid gains in reclaiming territory in Russia’s Kursk region, where
Ukraine launched a surprise incursion last year.
“Russia is
advancing [on the battlefield] … Any agreements must be on our terms, not
American ones … Washington should understand this as well,” the senior Russian
senator Konstantin Kosachev wrote on Telegram. “Victory will be ours,” he
added.
The lawmaker
Mikhail Sheremet told Russian media that Russia was not interested in
continuing the war but at the same time Moscow “will not tolerate begin strung
along”.
Other
insiders said that Russia would probably push for certain guarantees before
accepting a ceasefire.
On
Wednesday, Fyodor Lukyanov, a prominent Russian foreign policy analyst who
heads a council that advises the Kremlin, wrote that a ceasefire agreement
“contradicts” Moscow’s repeatedly stated position that no truce will take place
until the foundations of lasting peace are determined.
“In other
words, we fight until a comprehensive settlement framework is developed,”
Lukyanov concluded.
Putin has
repeatedly rejected the possibility of a temporary ceasefire, saying that he
was focused on addressing what he calls the “root causes” of the conflict.
Earlier this
year, he told Russia’s security council that there “should not be a short
truce, not some kind of respite for regrouping forces and rearmament with the
aim of subsequently continuing the conflict, but a long-term peace”.
Instead, the
Russian leader has set out a list of maximalist demands to end his invasion,
including Ukraine forgoing Nato membership, undergoing partial
demilitarisation, and ceding full control of the four Ukrainian regions Putin
claimed in 2022.
Russia’s
longtime foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, in an interview this week with a
group of far-right bloggers from the US, also stated that Moscow would not
accept western peacekeepers in Ukraine as security guarantees “under any
conditions”.
Still, an
outright rejection of the ceasefire by Putin would risk angering Trump and
undermining their warm relationship, which has led the US administration to
adopt a fundamentally different approach to Moscow compared with Europe.
Observers
suggest Moscow is likely to push either to reclaim all territory controlled by
Ukraine in Russia’s Kursk region or to demand Ukraine’s withdrawal from the
area before entering discussions on any ceasefire.
On
Wednesday, Russian forces entered the central square of Sudzha, the largest
town in Kursk captured by Ukraine last year, Moscow’s most significant
breakthrough in its effort to regain control of the region since Kyiv’s
surprise incursion last year.
Ruslan
Leviev, the founder of the Conflict Intelligence Team, an open-source
investigation unit, said Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region appeared to be
conducting a controlled withdrawal, ceding their positions without resistance.
“All areas
gradually coming under the control of Russian forces [and] have been taken with
little to no resistance. It can already be said that the entire city of Sudzha
is now under Russian control,” Leviev said.
While
Ukraine’s position in the Kursk region appears increasingly dire, it has
managed to stabilise the front in eastern Ukraine, where the Russian offensive
has largely stalled.
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