Putin Signals He's Ready For US Ceasefire Terms

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that he agrees in principle to the U.S.'s proposal for a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine, but with a major caveat: he clarified that terms need to be worked out and that any agreement should pave the way to a lasting peace.

"So the idea itself is correct, and we certainly support it," Putin said in a news conference in Moscow. But there are issues that we need to discuss, and I think that we need to discuss it with our American colleagues and partners."

Putin added that there needs to be a mechanism to control any breaches of the truce and raised doubts about the possibility that Ukraine will use the ceasefire to rearm and mobilize. "We agree with the proposals to halt the fighting, but we proceed from the assumption that the ceasefire should lead to lasting peace and remove the root causes of the crisis," he said.

The statements come as U.S. Presidential Envoy Steve Witkoff arrived in Moscow for talks on the matter. Ukraine already accepted to the ceasefire proposal following a meeting in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.

Russia approaches negotiations after a big battlefield win in the war: it took control of Sudzha, the largest settlement in Kursk, the region taken over by Kyiv in its counter-offensive last year.

Putin made a surprise visit to the region on Thursday, likely to boost troop morale. "Our task in the near future, in the shortest possible time frame, is to decisively defeat the enemy entrenched in the Kursk region," Putin said.

The Russian president made reference to the situation on the ground, saying that "in these conditions, I believe it would be good for the Ukrainian side to secure a ceasefire for at least 30 days."

Russian officials had showed skepticism about the deal, with foreign policy advisor Yuri Ushakov telling press the plan is "nothing else than a temporary respite for the Ukrainian military, nothing more."

Putin has said in the past that short-term ceasefires are not the way to end the war: "We don't need a truce, we need a long-term peace secured by guarantees for the Russian Federation and its citizens," he said in December, adding that "how to ensure these guarantees" was a "difficult question."

The Russian president said last June that in order to achieve peace Ukraine must officially drop any ambitions to join NATO and withdraw from the regions claimed by the country, which represent about a fifth of its territory.