Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that he agrees in principle with a U.S. proposal for a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine, but he emphasized that the terms are yet to be worked out and added that any truce should pave the way to lasting peace.
‘‘The idea itself is correct, and we certainly support it," Putin told a news conference in Moscow. ‘’But there are issues that we need to discuss, and I think that we need to talk about it with our American colleagues and partners and, perhaps, have a call with President Trump and discuss it with him."
President Donald Trump said there have been ‘’good signals'' coming out of Russia and offered guarded optimism about Putin’s statement. He reiterated that he’s ready to speak with Putin and underscored that it was time to end the war.
Putin “put out a very promising statement, but it wasn’t complete,‘’ Trump said Thursday at a start of a meeting at the White House with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. ‘’Now we’re going to see whether or not Russia’s there. And if they’re not, it’ll be a very disappointing moment for the world.‘’
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Putin is ‘’essentially preparing to reject'' the ceasefire.
Putin ‘’is afraid to tell President Trump directly that he wants to continue this war, that he wants to kill Ukrainians,‘’ Zelenskyy said in his nightly address to the nation. ‘’That is why, in Moscow, they are surrounding the idea of a ceasefire with such preconditions that nothing will come of it — or at least, it will be delayed as long as possible.‘’
The Russian president, he added, ‘’often acts this way. He doesn’t say ‘no’ outright but ensures that everything drags on and that normal solutions become impossible.‘’
Putin, who launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than three years ago, noted the need to control possible breaches of the truce and signaled that Russia would seek guarantees that Ukraine would not use the break in hostilities to rearm and continue mobilization.