The Financial Times reported on Tuesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered the United States a proposal to halt his invasion of Ukraine and freeze the current front line.
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According to the British newspaper, citing "people familiar with the matter," Putin made the proposal in early April during a meeting with U.S. envoy Steve Whitkoff in St. Petersburg, as part of ongoing negotiations for a ceasefire in Ukraine.
Halting the fighting and freezing the front line would mean that Moscow would abandon its demand to control all of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions, of which Russian forces currently occupy large parts.
The paper quoted its sources as saying that the Russian president is prepared to make this concession if the United States agrees to his key demands—particularly recognizing Moscow’s sovereignty over Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, and ensuring that Ukraine does not join NATO.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that Kyiv is ready for direct talks with Moscow after reaching a ceasefire agreement, following remarks by former U.S. President Donald Trump expressing hope for a near-term agreement to end the war between Russia and Ukraine.
In contrast, Kyiv and its European allies are demanding a complete withdrawal of Russian forces from all Ukrainian territory and a return to the pre-2014 status quo—a demand U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth called “unrealistic” in February.
