MOSCOW: Russia said Friday it expected Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump would discuss a US-proposed ceasefire in Ukraine, but that US envoy Steve Witkoff needed to relay Putin’s thoughts to the American president first.
Witkoff met the Russian president late Thursday to lay out the details of the US plan, which Ukraine agreed to on Tuesday.
“When Mr Witkoff brings all the information to President Trump, we will determine the timing of a conversation (between Trump and Putin),” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
“There is an understanding on all sides that such a conversation is needed. There are reasons to be cautiously optimistic,” Peskov added.
“There is still much to be done, but the president has nevertheless identified with President Trump’s position.”
Trump has expressed optimism that his team can secure a ceasefire, despite Moscow’s battlefield gains.
Putin said on Thursday: “We agree with proposals to cease hostilities, but on the basis that cessation would lead to long-term peace and address the root causes of the crisis.”
Russia has already ruled out accepting foreign peacekeepers in Ukraine as part of a ceasefire or long-term security guarantee for Kyiv.
That could go against a request Ukraine has made of European allies to deploy military “contingents” on its territory once the conflict ends to protect against future attacks from Russia.
“It is absolutely unacceptable to us that army units of other states be stationed in Ukraine under any flag,” Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a briefing.
“Be it a foreign contingent or a military base... all this would mean the involvement of these countries in a direct armed conflict with our country.”
The joint Ukrainian-US plan envisages a 30-day interim ceasefire in the three-year conflict that could be extended by mutual agreement.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday condemned Putin’s ambivalent response to a proposed ceasefire as “very manipulative”.
Russia on Friday said its forces had taken control of Goncharovka, a village in its Kursk region that had been occupied by Ukrainian troops.
Since Kyiv launched its cross-border assault into Kursk last August, Moscow has been pushing back hard, deploying thousands of North Korean troops to turf out the Ukrainian army.
Russian army units “liberated” Goncharovka “during offensive operations”, the defence ministry said. It lies on the outskirts of Sudzha, a larger town Moscow claimed on Thursday.
The Russian counteroffensive in Kursk has wrested much of the land Ukraine originally captured, denying Kyiv a vital point of leverage over Moscow in any potential peace talks.
In some sectors of the border region, Russian troops have crossed the frontier into Ukrainian territory in the Sumy region facing Kursk.
Andriy Demchenko, spokesman for the Ukrainian border guard service, told Ukrainian state media that Russian forces were trying to enter Sumy.
“We continue to detect attempts by small assault groups to enter our territory and approach our border,” he said.
Moscow claimed last week to have captured the village of Novenke, which lies just several kilometres from a vital resupply route for Ukrainian forces still in Kursk.