Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to walk back his foreign policy adviser’s comments from earlier in the day rejecting the U.S.-brokered temporary ceasefire deal with Ukraine.
Russia does “agree with the proposals for the ceasefire,” Putin said. “But our position is based on the assumption that the ceasefire would lead to long-term peace.”
“The idea itself is correct and we support it, but there are questions on both sides,” Putin said.
Putin presented demands for any long-term peace deal, including assurances that Ukraine could never join NATO and that Crimea and regions in the Donbas would be recognized territories of Russia.
Earlier in the day, Putin’s senior aide Yuri Ushakov said he told Mike Waltz, the U.S. national security adviser, that the deal was “nothing other than a temporary breather for Ukrainian troops.”
“Our goal is a long-term peaceful resolution,” Ushakov told reporters, in comments widely understood as Russia rejecting the U.S.- backed proposal.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Waltz have been acting as intermediaries between Russia and Ukraine. U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff arrived in Russia on Thursday for further talks.
Ukraine agreed to a U.S. proposal, which would institute a 30-day ceasefire, on Tuesday. Ukraine also committed to the “comprehensive agreement for developing Ukraine’s critical mineral resources.”
Their commitment resulted in an immediate resumption of intelligence and security assistance that the Trump administration halted early last week — a move that had caught lawmakers by surprise.
After an explosive meeting in the Oval Office between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last month, the agreement appeared to be a sign of detente between the two countries.
Rubio has endorsed the idea of a temporary ceasefire as a first step to larger negotiations.
“Before you can negotiate you have to stop shooting at each other,” Rubio told reporters on Tuesday. “This isn’t ‘Mean Girls,’ this isn’t some episode of a television show, this is serious stuff.”
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John T. Seward is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.