Russian President Vladimir Putin buried the lead about whether he would agree to a US-brokered proposal for a 30-day cease-fire in Ukraine.
Asked during a joint news conference on March 13 with Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko how he viewed Ukraine’s willingness to take part in a cease-fire, the Kremlin leader gave a heavily qualified answer.
“We agree with the proposals to stop the hostilities, but we proceed from the fact that this cessation should be such that it would lead to long-term peace and eliminate the original causes of this crisis,” he said.
SEE ALSO: Putin Says Russia Agrees With US Cease-Fire Proposal But 'With Nuances'Putin then embarked on a lengthy digression about the military situation in Russia’s Kursk region, which Ukrainian forces invaded seven months ago but have lost substantial ground in recent days.
The Russian Defense Ministry has claimed control there of the town of Sudzha, and Putin boasted in the news conference that Russian forces had “complete isolation and complete fire control” over Ukrainian forces in the region.
When visiting troops in Kursk, Putin wore military fatigues, something he does rarely.
Ukraine’s top commander said this week that Kyiv’s troops were “maneuvering to more favorable positions if necessary” – which experts said signaled a partial or possible complete withdrawal from the region.
That situation remains fluid, but Putin on March 12 used the opportunity to travel to the region -- conspicuously, and unusually, wearing military garb -- to strike the pose of a wartime leader.
That visit sent a bellicose signal to Washington. But in his remarks on March 13, Putin was slightly more conciliatory.
“The idea itself [of a cease-fire] is correct, and we certainly support it, but there are issues that we must discuss,” he said.
“I think that we need to talk to our American colleagues and partners about this, maybe call President [Donald] Trump and discuss it together," he said. "But the idea itself of ending this conflict by peaceful means is supported by us.”
Your browser doesn’t support HTML5
Russians React With Caution To Cease-Fire Proposal With Ukraine
The devil, of course, is in the details.
And it remains to be seen what concrete issues Putin wants to raise with Trump, who said he hoped Russia would "do the right thing" and agree to the deal. He also described Putin's comments as "promising" but incomplete.
“Putin’s position today rejects an unconditional cease-fire -- an uncomfortable stance that risks angering Trump and hindering the otherwise promising prospects of normalizing bilateral relations,” Tatyana Stanovaya, a veteran Russian political analyst, wrote in a post to X.
“However, this rejection is not absolute; he outlines his demands. His key condition is that a cease-fire must serve as a stepping stone to substantive talks on the root causes of the conflict -- Ukraine must agree to discuss an 'Istanbul Plus' framework, which Russia views as a path to Kyiv’s capitulation," she wrote.
“Istanbul Plus” is a reference to the 2022 negotiations that Russia and Ukraine held in the few weeks after the beginning of the all-out invasion, in February 2022. The negotiations led a framework agreement that observers say would have amounted to all-out capitulation by Ukraine.
“Putin also requires commitments from the US to halt military supplies, while Kyiv must pledge not to fortify its defense lines or use the pause for rearmament. Zelensky’s legitimacy must also be addressed,” she wrote, referring to recurring Kremlin assertions that the Ukrainian leader lacks legitimacy because martial law has prevented Ukraine from holding new elections.
Prominent Russian opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza was more blunt, and he suggested that Putin—a former top officer with the KGB and its successor, the FSB -- had inadvertently let slip a fundamental truth.
Your browser doesn’t support HTML5
‘Meaningless Without Russia’: Ukrainians React To Proposed Cease-Fire Deal
“The main ‘root cause’ is an old, deranged KGB officer in the Kremlin who views the collapse of the Soviet empire as ‘the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century,’ calls his opponents ‘national traitors’ and Ukraine ‘an artificial state,’ and idolizes Stalin and Andropov’,” Kara-Murza wrote in a post to X.
Andropov is a reference to Yury Andropov, who headed the Soviet-era KGB until becoming the Soviet Union's leader in 1982.
“Without ‘eliminating’ this ‘root cause’ there will not be peace not only in Ukraine, but in Europe as a whole," Kara-Murza wrote.
The next step in the process, then, may happen on a more personal level when Trump and Putin take up the conversation.