Russian President Vladimir Putin said he agrees in principle with the US proposal for a temporary cease-fire with Ukraine, but added that "there are nuances," such as Western weapons deliveries to Kyiv, that he wants addressed first.
The Russian leader also said any agreement should lead to long-term peace that address the "root" reasons for the war, a likely reference to NATO expansion.
SEE ALSO: Kursk Ambush: Did Russia Pull Off Another Pipeline Sneak Attack On Ukrainian Troops?"We agree with the proposal to stop the fighting. But we proceed from the fact that this cessation should lead to long-term peace and eliminate the root causes of this crisis," Putin said in his first public comments about how he assessed the US proposal for a cease-fire.
"We are for [a cease-fire], but there are nuances," Putin added during a March 13 press conference in Moscow with Belarusian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko.
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Putin is facing a dilemma after delegations from Kyiv and Washington agreed earlier this week at a meeting in Saudi Arabia to a 30-day cease-fire proposed by US President Donald Trump, putting the onus for peace in Moscow's lap.
"I think the Russians are keen not to be seen as the intransigent party as that could lead to consequences from Trump, such as sanctions. So that informed Putin's comments today," John Hardie, deputy director of the Russia Program at Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based think tank, told RFE/RL.
Putin was set to meet Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, to discuss the cease-fire proposal. Following Putin's comments, Trump said he hoped Russia would "do the right thing" and agree to the deal. He described Putin's comments as "promising" but incomplete.
Trump on March 13 said during a meeting with NATO chief Mark Rutte that Witkoff was engaged in "very serious discussions" in Moscow. The president added he "getting word of things going OK in Russia." Witkoff's exact scheduled was not disclosed.
In his daily nighttime address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Putin is preparing to reject the cease-fire proposal but is scared to say this directly to Trump.
Trump has made ending Russia's more than three-year full-scale invasion of Ukraine a top priority since taking office for a second term less than two months ago, and is wielding US leverage to get both Kyiv and Moscow to the table.
The US president on March 12 threatened to impose more sanctions on Russia if it did not agree to the cease-fire. However, Trump did not give a time frame for Putin to agree to his proposal or say whether he would be willing to negotiate with Putin on the "nuances."
The Russian leader said there were several unanswered questions in the proposal, such as what to do about Ukraine's incursion into Russia's Kursk region.
"If we have a cease-fire, does that mean that everyone there would leave?" Putin said. "Should we release them [Ukrainian troops] after they committed crimes against the population? Or would they surrender?"
SEE ALSO: Analysis: Will Russia Accept The US Proposal For A Cease-Fire With Ukraine?Ukraine seized a swath of the Kursk region in a stealth incursion in August, a move seen as an effort to divert Russian forces from eastern Ukraine and use the territory as a bargaining chip in any peace talks.
That strategy is now failing as Russian forces supported by North Korean troops push the Ukrainians out of Kursk. Russia has regained more than half the territory in Kursk initially captured by Ukraine.
Putin, who visited Kursk yesterday for the first time since the August push, said the situation in the region is now "totally under our control."
He said the Ukrainians escape route is completely under Russian fire and that if his forces are able to physically block the route, Ukrainian troops in Kursk will only have two options: surrender or be killed.
Among the other concerns the Russian leader voiced about the cease-fire proposal is whether Ukraine would use the 30-day period to mobilize and train forces or rearm with the help of the West. He also raised the question of how the nearly 2,000-kilometer front would be monitored.
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Sudzha 'Has Been Destroyed' As Russia Reclaims Kursk Town
"Who will determine where and who violated the possible cease-fire agreement?" he said.
Experts had warned that Putin would likely seek to drag out cease-fire talks because his forces have the upper hand on the battlefield.
Aside from the advances in Kursk, Russia is gaining territory in eastern Ukraine -- albeit at high human and material costs -- due to its significant manpower advantage.
Russia is seeking to capture at a minimum the entirety of the four regions of Ukraine it claims to have annexed in November 2022: Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya, and Kherson. A cease-fire now would leave them short of that goal.
"One way the Russians could slow down this process without coming out directly and saying 'no', is by dragging out those technical discussions on monitoring" the cease-fire, Hardie said.
"That could also give them ways to try to pin the blame back on Ukraine, by insisting on certain technical matters that Ukraine might find objectionable," he said.
Hardie said Trump could increase pressure on Putin by sanctioning more Russian oil tankers, commonly called the "shadow fleet." Oil exports accounts for about a third of Russia's federal budget revenue.
On March 13, US administration heightened pressure on Russia by increasing restrictions on the country's oil, gas, and banking sectors.
Among the measures, the Treasury Department was letting expire a 60-day exemption put in place in January by the Biden administration that allowed some energy transactions involving sanctioned Russian banks to continue. The latest move would make it more difficult for other nations to buy Russian oil.
Another option would be threatening secondary sanctions on countries like India, China, and Turkey that buy Russian oil above the price cap the West imposed on Russia oil of $60 a barrel.
"If Trump really wants to squeeze the Russian revenue, he could do it that way," Hardie said.