Moscow: The terms of President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine include a demand that Western leaders pledged in writing to prevent NATO from moving east and to lift a part of Russia restrictions on Russia, about the knowledge of negotiations according to three Russian sources.
US President Donald Trump has repeatedly stated that he wants to end the deadliest European struggle since the World War 2 and has shown growing disappointment with Putin in recent times, warning on Tuesday that the Russian leaders were “playing with fire”, refusing to negotiate a ceasefire with Kiev as his forces had made a profit in the battlefield.
After talking to Trump for more than two hours last week, Putin said he had agreed to work on a memorandum with Ukraine, which would establish the figure of a peace agreement, including the time of a ceasefire,. Russia says that it is currently drafting its version of the memorandum and cannot guess how much time it will take.
Kiev and European governments have accused Moscow of stalling, while its troops move forward in eastern Ukraine.
“Putin is ready to create peace, but not at any cost,” a senior Russian source said with the knowledge of the top level Kremlin thinking who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Three Russian sources said that Putin wants the “written” pledge by major Western powers not to extend the US -led NATO alliance to East – formally Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova and other former Soviet Republic membership for membership of the Republic.
Russia also wants Ukraine to be neutral, some Western sanctions were lifted, a solution to the issue of frozen sovereign assets in the west, and protection to Russian speakers in Ukraine, said the three sources.
The first source said, if Putin finds out that he is unable to reach a peace deal on his terms, he would try to show Ukrainian and Europeans to show the military victory that “peace will be even more painful tomorrow”.
The Kremlin did not respond to the request of the comment on the reporting of Reuters. Putin and Russian officials repeatedly stated that any peace deal should address the “root causes” of the struggle – Russian stenography for the issue of NATO enlargement and Western support for Ukraine.
Kiev repeatedly said that Russia should not be given veto power on the aspirations to join the NATO alliance. Ukraine says that it needs West to give a strong safety guarantee with teeth to prevent any future Russian attack.
The administration of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy did not respond to the request of the comment.
NATO has also said in the past that he will not change his “open door” policy just because Moscow demands it. 32-A spokesperson of the member’s coalition did not answer the questions of the Reuters.
Putin ordered thousands of soldiers in Ukraine in February 2022, eight years after fighting in Eastern Ukraine between Russian -backed separatists and Ukrainian soldiers.
Russia currently controls under the fifth of the country. Although Russian advances have increased in the last one year, war has been expensive by both Russia and Ukraine in terms of number of casualties and military expenses.
Reuters reported in January that Putin was worried about economic distortions in Russia’s war -time economy, between high interest rates to curb labor and inflation. The price of oil, depending on Russia’s economy, has steadily declined this year.
Trump, who is proud of himself to have a friendly relationship with Putin and expressed his confidence that Russian leaders want peace, warned that Washington can further ban if Moscow delays efforts to find a disposal. Trump on social media on Sunday suggested that last week, Putin was “completely crazy” by exposing a large -scale air strike on Ukraine.
The first source said that if Putin saw a strategic opportunity on the battlefield, he would move forward in Ukraine – and Kremlin believed that Russia could fight for years, no matter what restrictions and economic pain was imposed by the West.
Another source said that Putin was now less keen to compromise in the region and was clinging to his public stance that he wanted the entirety of four regions in the eastern Ukraine claimed by Russia.
“Putin has tightened his position,” the second source said about the question of the area.
NATO growth
Trump and Putin Ukraine more publicly publicly, the Reuters could not determine whether the intensity of war and the strictness of the posts is determined to reach a deal or the collapse of talks.
In June last year, Putin set his initial terms for the immediate end for the war: Ukraine should abandon his NATO ambitions and all his soldiers should withdraw the entireness of the region of four Ukrainian regions and was mostly controlled by Russia.
In addition to Crimea, which was annexed in 2014, Russia currently controls almost all Luhanskas, more than 70% of Donnetsk, Zaporizhajia and Kherson regions. It also occupies a sliver of Kharakiv and Sumi regions, and is threatening dnipropetrovsk.
Former US President Joe Biden, Western European leaders, and Ukraine, put the invasion as a royal-style land and vow to defeat Russian forces repeatedly.
Putin explained the war as a watershed moment in Moscow’s relations with the West, saying that Russia insulted Russia after the Soviet Union’s falling of NATO in 1991 and encroaching the Soviet Union by encroaching on the area of Moscow’s influence.
At the 2008 Bucharest Summit, NATO leaders agreed that Ukraine and Georgia would become one day members. In 2019, Ukraine amended its constitution for the path of complete membership of NATO and the European Union.
Trump has stated that Ukraine’s NATO membership was a reason for the previous American support war for bid, and indicated that Ukraine would not get membership. The US State Department did not respond to the request of comment for this story.
Putin, who arrived in the top Kremlin job in 1999, returned to the issue of repeated NATO enlargement, which includes his most detailed comments about a possible peace in 2024.
In 2021, a few months before the Russian invasion, Moscow proposed a draft agreement with members of NATO, under Article 6, would “bind NATO to avoid any more detail of NATO, which includes Ukraine as well as other states along with other states.” The US and NATO diplomats said at that time that the Russian could not vet on the expansion of the alliance.
Russia wants a pledge on NATO in writing as Putin feels that Moscow was misled by the United States after the fall of the Berlin wall of 1989 when US State Secretary James Baker assured Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 that NATO had not expanded the east, two sources said.
Such was such an oral promise, William J, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Burns said in his memoirs, but it was never formally done – and it was built at a time when the Soviet Union did not collapse.
Established in 1949 to provide protection against the Soviet Union, NATO says it is not a challenge for Russia – although Russia was identified as the most “important and direct threat” in the Euro -Atlantic sector.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that year inspired Finland to join NATO in 2023, followed by Sweden in 2024.
Western European leaders have repeatedly stated that if Russia wins the Ukraine war, it can one day attack NATO – a step that will trigger a world war. Russia dismissed such claims as baseless intimidation, but has also warned the war in Ukraine that it could move forward in a broader struggle.
