Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday proposed direct talks with Ukraine on May 15 in Istanbul that he said should be aimed at bringing a durable peace and eliminating the root causes of the war.
Putin sent thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022, unleashing a war that has left hundreds of thousands of soldiers dead and triggering the gravest confrontation between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
He said Russia was proposing direct talks with Ukraine in Istanbul in an attempt to "eliminate the root causes of the conflict" and "to achieve the restoration of a long-term, lasting peace" rather than simply a pause for rearmament.
"We are proposing that Kyiv resume direct negotiations without any preconditions," Putin said from the Kremlin in the early hours of Sunday. "We offer the Kyiv authorities to resume negotiations already on Thursday, in Istanbul."
Despite public and private pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump and repeated warnings from European powers, Putin has offered few concessions towards ending the conflict.
Putin said that he would speak to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan later on Sunday about facilitating the talks, which he said could lead to a ceasefire.
"Our proposal, as they say, is on the table, the decision is now up to the Ukrainian authorities and their curators, who are guided, it seems, by their personal political ambitions, and not by the interests of their peoples."
There was no immediate response from Kyiv to the proposal, which came in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Russia, Putin said, had proposed several ceasefires, including a moratorium on striking energy facilities, an Easter ceasefire and most recently the 72-hour truce during the celebrations marking 80 years since victory in World War Two but accused Ukraine of repeatedly violating the ceasefires.
He said that during the May ceasefire Ukraine had attacked Russia with 524 aerial drones, 45 sea drones, a number of Western missiles and that Russia had repelled five attacks on Russian regions.
Ukraine has accused Russia of repeatedly violating its own ceasefire, and along with major European powers, demanded on Saturday that Putin agree to an unconditional 30-day ceasefire or face "massive" new sanctions.
Putin dismissed what he said was the attempt by some European powers to slap down "ultimatums".
Putin, whose forces have advanced over the past year, has stood firm in his conditions for ending the war.
In June 2024, he said that Ukraine must officially drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw its troops from the entirety of the territory of four Ukrainian regions claimed by Russia.
Russian officials have also proposed that the United States recognize Russia's control over about one fifth of Ukraine and demanded that Ukraine remains neutral though Moscow has said it is not opposed to Kyiv's ambitions to join the European Union.
Putin specifically mentioned the 2022 draft deal which Russia and Ukraine negotiated shortly after the Russian invasion of February 2022.
Under that draft, a copy of which Reuters has seen, Ukraine should agree to permanent neutrality in return for international security guarantees from the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council: Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.
"It was not Russia that broke off negotiations in 2022. It was Kyiv," Putin said. "Russia is ready to negotiate without any preconditions."
He thanked China, Brazil, African and Middle Eastern countries and the United States for their efforts to mediate.
Trump, who says he wants to be remembered as a peacemaker, has repeatedly said he wants to end the "bloodbath" of the Ukraine war which his administration casts as a proxy war between the United States and Russia.
Former U.S. President Joe Biden, Western European leaders and Ukraine cast the invasion as an imperial-style land grab and repeatedly vowed to defeat Russian forces.
Putin casts the war as a watershed moment in Moscow's relations with the West, which he says humiliated Russia after the Soviet Union fell in 1991 by enlarging NATO and encroaching on what he considers Moscow's sphere of influence, including Ukraine.
© Thomson Reuters 2025.
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HopeSpringsEternal
Great idea, as others can help bring the horses to the water, but the horses have to drink on their own!
chatanista
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday proposed direct talks with Ukraine on May 15 in Istanbul,
"We are proposing that Kyiv resume direct negotiations without any preconditions," Putin said from the Kremlin in the early hours of Sunday. "We offer the Kyiv authorities to resume negotiations already on Thursday, in Istanbul."
Good to see the momentum towards direct unconditional peace talks between Russia and Ukraine gathering speed. Trump administration unrelenting efforts to bring peace to Ukraine are paying off. This war needs to end.
JJE
Putin called the bluff of that "coalition of the willing".
Everything has conditions.
bass4funk
Let’s hope this is the real deal.
JJE
Important to observe, this statement from the Kremlin included foreign media.
In the main photo, seated on the left is long term BBC Moscow correspondent Steve Rosenberg (who can actually speak the local tongue).
Frederik Pleitgen of CNN is seated next him on left (out of view)
Keir Simmons of NBC was also in the same row (out of view).
Blacklabel
Sounds like a positive development towards getting this over and done with.
itsonlyrocknroll
Scheming calculated trickery, that will ultimately cost more innocent lives of Ukrainian civilians.
Ukrainians tortured, raped, executed by Russian captors, Human Rights Council hears
https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/03/1161281
Putin is first and foremost a war criminal, a throw back to Hitlers Nazi Germany.
Believe anything less is cowardly appeasement.
Dragon
Even if a peace agreement can be made, it will take decades to rebuild Ukraine.
JJE
Also, time context is important. This presser was after midnight Moscow time (May 11), just in time for Mother's Day. Apparently scheduled earlier but Putin had a huge number of working meetings which dragged on. And the journalists were forced to wait a few hours.
HopeSpringsEternal
Civil wars can be supported by third parties, much like the US supported those in Bosnia during the Yugoslavian war. Putin's done the same in Ukraine and various other former Soviet Union satellite countries.
In fact, UN charter authorizes those being persecuted to be supported by outside countries, like US in Yugoslavia. That's Putin's legal basis for his security operation.
But the world wants peace, not more civil war, so hopefully these two adults can work it out ASAP!
itsonlyrocknroll
In September 1938, after the Munich Agreement allowed Nazi Germany to annex the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain declared "peace for our time" upon returning to Britain.
This phrase became a symbol of appeasement, as it was later viewed as a misguided attempt to avoid war by conceding to Hitler's demands.
Listen and learn from the lesson of history!
Stand with Ukraine, send a clear message, support with every mean necessary, land sea air.
Put troops on the ground
The consequences could be horrific, despot dictators must be confronted, if that means world war three, so be it.
JJE
The delay of the press conference was inevitable. Putin has had a large number of people to meet and greet over the last week, with the Victory Parade 80th and all the foreign dignitaries, officials and guests in town for the occasion. Even a workaholic like him gets behind schedule - but it does happen and what he sets out to do will get done, one way or the other. Make no mistake about that.
Here he is giving warm welcome greetings, speaking English, to an acclaimed American filmmaker in the Kremlin:
https://x.com/i/status/1920831101838221365
Dragon
Trump was the only leader demanding repayment for the US weapons supplied, but a mineral deal was agreed, and that is no longer an issue. Just weapons will be sold in the future.
geronimo2006
Putin plays his latest card to placate and manipulate Trump.
Putin: OK, let's have direct talks from 15th.
Trump: OK, we'll see how this goes. I'll hold off on sanctions, and I won't give Ukraine any support.
Putin: Good, however, I still can't agree to a ceasefire.
Trump: Please stop, or I will walk away.
Putin: I understand, but if you do we can still be friends. And I can offer you a great deal on minerals.
Trump: Seems fair. I'll send over Whitkoff.
Underworld
You can say it was Kyiv, but the conditions of those negotiations were ridiculous. Ukraine would have had to disband their defense force. That's never going to happen.
HopeSpringsEternal
No doubt due to this war largely, Putin's resource and mineral wealth has sky-rocketed in value relative to currencies. He's also become a very key player with regards to China due to this war.
Zelenskyy on the other hand has seen his country devastated, indebted and MANY millions of the most educated, young and wealthy flee abroad due to the war
Above has a big impact on Peace negotiations and the 'feelings' of leadership across EU and US in particular, regarding overall geo-politics, with Russia gaining a massive upgrade and Ukraine a massive downgrade.
Nobody said Peace would be easy, but it's necessary and above 'results' of war are 'baked-in' to negotiations
JJE
You can say it was Kyiv that broke them off then because it was.
Important to observe those negotiations would have led to 2022 borders being restored - meaning an autonomous Donbass in a federal-Ukraine like-system.
That ship sailed long ago. The new deal will be much harsher than that one, especially on territorial concessions. Nonetheless it will obviously serve as rough framework, with strict neutrality an absolute no-brainer.
Expat
Russian inflation is 13%. The Bank of Russia has taken measures raising the key rate to 21%.
Underworld
JJE
Yes. Kyiv broke it off because Russia's terms were unreasonable.
Temporarily. Eventually it would become Russian in that deal.
Yup. Thank goodness.
Nope. It won't. Let's not kid ourselves, there will be no deal because Russia is unreasonable. Putin still wants all of Ukraine.
Ukraine have always been neutral.
And let's be clear, neutrality requires a large defense force.
JJE
Failing to agree to Moscow's conditions mean implementation militarily. The article even mentions Putin is in the driver's seat:
That's part of the inescapable calculus: Russian forces have the initiative.
Another serious issue is whether Moscow can trust the collect West again.
chatanista
, if that means world war three, so be it.
No thanks, most of the world disagrees and wishes no WW3 over Ukraine. The conflict will be settled at a negotiating table soon.
Underworld
JJE
Not really. They have advanced only slightly. They still haven't even taken Pokrovsk, which they were talking about in August last year.
Nope. They don't even know what their goal is.
chatanista
And let's be clear, neutrality requires a large defense force.
Perhaps, neutrality also means no NATO membership.
Underworld
chatanista
Ukraine have always been neutral.
And let's be clear, neutrality requires a large defense force.
Sure.
I would argue that eventually they will become part of NATO, but not any time soon.