Exclusive: Putin wants Ukraine ceasefire on current frontlines
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1 of 2 Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin in Moscow,
Russia, May 23, 2024. YURI KOCHETKOV/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
[1/2]Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, May 23, 2024. YURI KOCHETKOV/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights - Russian sources indicate Putin ready to halt conflict at front
- Putin to take more land to pressure Kyiv to talk: sources
- Does not want another national mobilisation: sources
- Putin has no designs on NATO territory: sources
- Russia concerned about nuclear escalation: sources
MOSCOW/LONDON,
May 24 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to halt
the war in Ukraine with a negotiated ceasefire that recognises the
current battlefield lines, four Russian sources told Reuters, saying he
is prepared to fight on if Kyiv and the West do not respond.
Three
of the sources, familiar with discussions in Putin's entourage, said
the veteran Russian leader had expressed frustration to a small group of
advisers about what he views as Western-backed attempts to stymie
negotiations and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's decision to
rule out talks.
"Putin
can fight for as long as it takes, but Putin is also ready for a
ceasefire – to freeze the war," said another of the four, a senior
Russian source who has worked with Putin and has knowledge of top level
conversations in the Kremlin.
He, like the others cited in this story, spoke on condition of anonymity given the matter's sensitivity.
For
this account, Reuters spoke to a total of five people who work with or
have worked with Putin at a senior level in the political and business
worlds. The fifth source did not comment on freezing the war at the
current frontlines.
Asked about the Reuters report at a news conference in Belarus on Friday, Putin said peace talks should restart.
"Let
them resume," he said, adding that negotiations should be based on "the
realities on the ground" and on a plan agreed during a
previous attempt to reach a deal in the first weeks of the war. "Not on the basis of what one side wants," he said.
Ukrainian
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on X that the Russian leader was
trying to derail a Ukrainian-initiated peace summit in Switzerland next
month by using his entourage to send out "phony signals" about his
alleged readiness to halt the war.
"Putin
currently has no desire to end his aggression against Ukraine. Only the
principled and united voice of the global majority can force him to
choose peace over war," said Kuleba.
Mykhailo Podolyak, a Ukrainian presidential adviser, said Putin wanted Western democracies to accept defeat.
NOT "ETERNAL WAR"
The appointment last week of economist
Andrei Belousov
as Russia's defence minister was seen by some Western military and
political analysts as placing the Russian economy on a permanent war
footing in order to win a protracted conflict.
It followed
sustained battlefield pressure and territorial advances by Russia in recent weeks.
However,
the sources said that Putin, re-elected in March for a new six-year
term, would rather use Russia's current momentum to put the war behind
him. They did not directly comment on the new defence minister.
Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov, in response to a request for comment, said the country did not want “eternal war.”
Based
on their knowledge of conversations in the upper ranks of the Kremlin,
two of the sources said Putin was of the view that gains in the war so
far were enough to sell a victory to the Russian people.
Europe's
biggest ground conflict since World War Two has cost tens of thousands
of lives on both sides and led to sweeping Western sanctions on Russia's
economy.
Three
sources said Putin understood any dramatic new advances would require
another nationwide mobilisation, which he didn't want, with one source,
who knows the Russian president, saying his popularity dipped after the
first mobilisation in September 2022.
The
national call up spooked part of the population in Russia, triggering
hundreds of thousands of draft age men to leave the country. Polls
showed Putin’s popularity falling by several points.
Peskov said Russia had no need for mobilisation and was instead recruiting volunteer contractors to the armed forces.
The prospect of a ceasefire, or even peace talks, currently seems remote.
Zelenskiy
has repeatedly said peace on Putin's terms is a non-starter. He has
vowed to retake lost territory, including Crimea, which Russia annexed
in 2014. He signed a decree in 2022 that formally declared any talks
with Putin "impossible."
One
of the sources predicted no agreement could happen while Zelenskiy was
in power, unless Russia bypassed him and struck a deal with Washington.
However, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking in Kyiv last
week, told reporters he did not believe Putin was interested in serious
negotiations.
SWISS TALKS
The
Swiss peace summit in June is aimed at unifying international opinion
on how to end the war. The talks were convened at the initiative of
Zelenskiy who has said Putin should not attend. Switzerland has not
invited Russia.
Moscow
has said the talks are not credible without it being there. Ukraine and
Switzerland want Russian allies including China to attend.
Speaking
in China on May 17, Putin said Ukraine may use the Swiss talks to get a
broader group of countries to back Zelenskiy’s demand for a total
Russian withdrawal, which Putin said would be an imposed condition
rather than a serious peace negotiation.
The Swiss foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In
response to questions for this story, a U.S. State Department
spokesperson said any initiative for peace must respect Ukraine’s
“territorial integrity, within its internationally recognised borders”
and described Russia as the sole obstacle to peace in Ukraine.
“The Kremlin has yet to demonstrate any meaningful interest in ending its war, quite the opposite,” the spokesperson said.
Kyiv
says Putin, whose team repeatedly denied he was planning a war before
invading Ukraine in 2022, cannot be trusted to honour any deal.
Both Russia and Ukraine have also said they fear the other side would use any ceasefire to re-arm.
Kyiv and its Western backers are banking on a $61 billion U.S. aid package and additional European military aid to reverse what
Zelenskiy described to Reuters this week as "one of the most difficult moments" of the full scale war.
As
well as shortages of ammunition after U.S. delays in approving the
package, Ukraine has admitted it is struggling to recruit enough troops
and last month lowered the age for men who can be drafted to 25 from 27.
TERRITORY
Putin's insistence on locking in any battlefield gains in a deal is non-negotiable, all of the sources suggested.
Putin
would, however, be ready to settle for what land he has now and freeze
the conflict at the current front lines, four of the sources said.
"Putin
will say that we won, that NATO attacked us and we kept our
sovereignty, that we have a land corridor to Crimea, which is true," one
of them said, giving their own analysis.
Freezing
the conflict along current lines would leave Russia in possession of
substantial chunks of four Ukrainian regions he formally incorporated
into Russia in September 2022, but without full control of any of them.
Such
an arrangement would fall short of the goals Moscow set for itself at
the time, when it said the four of Ukraine's regions - Donetsk, Luhansk,
Zaporizhzhia and Kherson - now belonged to it in their entirety.
Peskov
said that there could be no question of handing back the four regions
which were now permanently part of Russia according to its own
constitution.
Another
factor playing into the Kremlin chief's view that the war should end is
that the longer it drags on, the more battle-hardened veterans return
to Russia, dissatisfied with post-war job and income prospects,
potentially creating tensions in society, said one of the sources, who
has worked with Putin.
'RUSSIA WILL PUSH FURTHER'
In February, three Russian sources told Reuters the United States rejected a
previous Putin suggestion of a ceasefire to freeze the war.
In
the absence of a ceasefire, Putin wants to take as much territory as
possible to ratchet up pressure on Ukraine while seeking to exploit
unexpected opportunities to acquire more, three of the sources said.
Russian forces control around 18% of Ukraine and this month thrust into the northeastern region of Kharkiv.
Putin
is counting on Russia's large population compared to Ukraine to sustain
superior manpower even without a mobilisation, bolstered by unusually
generous pay packets for those who sign up.
"Russia will push further," the source who has worked with Putin said.
Putin
will slowly conquer territories until Zelenskiy comes up with an offer
to stop, the person said, saying the Russian leader had expressed the
view to aides that the West would not provide enough weapons, sapping
Ukraine's morale.
U.S. and European leaders have said they will
stand by Ukraine
until its security sovereignty is guaranteed. NATO countries and allies
say they are trying to accelerate deliveries of weapons.
“Russia
could end the war at any time by withdrawing its forces from Ukraine,
instead of continuing to launch brutal attacks against Ukraine’s cities,
ports, and people every day,” the State Department said in response to a
question about weapons supplies.
All five sources said Putin had told advisers he had
no designs on NATO
territory, reflecting his public comments on the matter. Two of the
sources cited Russian concerns about the growing danger of escalation
with the West, including nuclear escalation, over the Ukraine standoff.
The
State Department said the United States had not adjusted its nuclear
posture, nor seen any sign that Russia was preparing to use a nuclear
weapon.
“We continue to monitor the strategic environment and remain ready,” the spokesperson said.
Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow and Andrew Osborn in London
Writing by Andrew Osborn
Editing by Frank Jack Daniel