Putin open to discussing ceasefire with Trump but rejects major territory concessions and Ukraine NATO membership — Reuters

Russian President Vladimir Putin is willing to discuss a potential ceasefire in Ukraine with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, though he has ruled out significant territorial concessions and insists that Ukraine must not join NATO, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing five current and former officials familiar with the Kremlin’s thinking.

According to the agency’s sources, who spoke anonymously, Putin could agree to freeze the conflict roughly along the current front lines. Three of the sources said he may be open to negotiation over the specific division of the four Ukrainian regions Moscow claims to have annexed. Two officials said that the Kremlin may be willing to withdraw from the smaller areas it controls in the Kharkiv and Mykolaiv regions.

Current U.S. President Joe Biden’s decision to grant Ukraine permission to use U.S.-made ATACMS missiles to strike Russian territory could impede negotiations and delay any agreement, according to two of Reuters’ sources. They said that Russia will continue fighting if no ceasefire deal is reached.

All five of the sources said that Russia is open to discussing security guarantees for Ukraine that don’t involve NATO membership or NATO troops being stationed in the country. In exchange, Moscow could seek for Kyiv to agree to limit the size of its military and pledge not to restrict the use of the Russian language, they said.

Two of the sources told Reuters that a possible deal could resemble the draft agreement that Moscow and Kyiv nearly agreed upon in April 2022 following talks in Istanbul.

Asked about the Reuters report on Wednesday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that freezing the conflict would “not suit” Russia because it needs to “achieve its goals.” He added that Putin has repeatedly expressed willingness to engage in negotiations.