Russia sets conditions for ceasefire - Kremlin presents US with demands to end war in Ukraine
Russia has presented the United States with a list of demands to reach an agreement regarding the war in Ukraine and restore relations with Washington.
Russian and American officials discussed the terms in in-person and virtual conversations over the past three weeks, according to inside sources. They described the Kremlin's terms as similar to demands it has previously made to Ukraine, the United States and NATO.
These previous conditions included the lack of NATO membership for Kiev, an agreement not to station foreign troops in Ukraine, and international recognition of President Vladimir Putin's claim that Crimea and four provinces belong to Russia.
Russia, in recent years, has also demanded that the US and NATO address what it has called the "root causes" of the war, including NATO's eastward expansion.
US President Donald Trump is awaiting word from Putin on whether he will agree to a 30-day ceasefire, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he would accept as a first step towards peace talks.
Putin's commitment to a possible ceasefire agreement remains uncertain, with details yet to be finalized. Some U.S. officials, lawmakers and experts fear that Putin, a former KGB officer, would use a ceasefire to intensify an effort to divide the U.S., Ukraine and Europe and derail any talks.
Moscow finally discussed the demands with the Biden administration in a series of meetings in late 2021 and early 2022, as tens of thousands of Russian troops lined up on the Ukrainian border, awaiting orders to invade.
They included demands that would limit US and NATO military operations from Eastern Europe to Central Asia.
While rejecting some of the conditions, the Biden administration tried to prevent the invasion by engaging with Russia on some of them, according to U.S. government documents reviewed by Reuters. The effort failed, and Russia attacked on Feb. 24, 2022.
U.S. and Russian officials have said in recent weeks that a draft agreement discussed by Washington, Kiev and Moscow in Istanbul in 2022 could be a starting point for peace talks. The agreement never materialized.
In those talks, Russia demanded that Ukraine give up its NATO ambitions and accept a permanent nuclear-weapons-free status. The Kremlin also demanded a veto over the actions of countries that wanted to help Ukraine in the event of war.
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