MOSCOW/LONDON: Russian President Vladimir Putin‘s suggestion of a ceasefire in Ukraine to freeze the war was rejected by the US after contacts between intermediaries, three Russian sources with knowledge of the discussions said. The failure of Putin’s approach ushers in a third year of the deadliest conflict in Europe since WWII.
A US source denied there had been any official contact and said Washington would not engage in talks that didn’t involve Ukraine. Putin sent signals to Washington in 2023 in public and privately through intermediaries, including through Moscow’s Arab partners in West Asia and others, that he was ready to consider a ceasefire in Ukraine, the Russian sources said.
Putin was proposing to freeze the conflict at the current lines and was unwilling to cede any of the Ukrainian territory controlled by Russia, but the signal offered what some in the Kremlin saw as the best path towards a peace of some kind. “The contacts with the Americans came to nothing,” said a senior Russian source with knowledge of the discussions in late 2023 and early 2024. A second Russian source said that the Americans told Moscow, via the intermediaries, they would not discuss a possible ceasefire without the participation of Ukraine and so the contacts ended in failure. A third source said that the Americans did not want to pressure Ukraine.
The Kremlin, the White House, the US state department and the CIA all declined to comment.