Vladimir Putin is ready to make a massive U-turn and discuss a Ukraine ceasefire deal with US President-Elect Donald Trump, sources claim.
The Russian President is understood to have a list of weighty demands – one of which would be that Kyiv abandon its long-held ambition to join Nato.
Trump, who won a thumping victory in the US election in early November over Democractic rival Kamala Harris, will enter the White House in January.
The Republican has been deeply criticial of President Biden’s handling of the conflict, and has promised to end the fighting “in a day”.
Five sources with knowledge of Kremlin thinking told Reuters Putin is open to discussing a peace deal, in the first detailed reporting of what he would accept in any agreement brokered by the US President.
Putin’s troops now control a chunk of Ukraine comparable to the size of the US state of Virginia, coming up to three years since Russia‘s invasion began in February 2022.
According to the five current and former Russian officials the news agency spoke to, Moscow could broadly agree to freeze the conflict along the front lines.
Three of the people, all of whom asked to remain anonymous, said there also could be room for negotiation over how the four eastern regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson would be carved up.
Two of the officials said the Kremlin may also be open to pulling out of the relatively small areas of territory it holds in the Kharkiv and Mykolaiv regions, in the north and south of Ukraine.
However, according to two of the insiders, Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to launch American ATACMS missiles deep into Russia could complicate and delay any agreement.
It could also see Moscow’s demands harden, as the most hawkish in the leadership push for a larger chunk of Ukraine, they claimed.
Two of the sources, when asked what a proposed agreement could look like, referred to a draft agreement that was almost signed in April 2022 following talks in Istanbul.
Putin has formerly referred to the document in public as a possible basis for a deal, though it would see tough terms imposed on Ukraine.
According to a draft copy seen by Reuters, under the agreement 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 US.
One official said there couldn’t be a deal without security guaruntees for Ukraine, saying: “The question is how to avoid a deal that locks the West into a possible direct confrontation with Russia one day.”
In a statement to the agency only hours before Biden’s missile authorisation, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “Putin has already said that freezing the conflict will not work in any way,” adding that “the missile authorisation is a very dangerous escalation on the part of the United States.”
The Ukrainian foreign ministry is yet to comment on the reporting, though Kyiv’s leader Volodymr Zelensky has vowed to not rest until every Russian soldier is driven out.
Trump’s communications director Steven Cheung said the incoming Commander-in-Chief “is the only person who can bring both sides together in order to negotiate peace, and work towards ending the war and stopping the killing”.
But Analysts from the think tank the Institute for the Study of War said the messaging from Moscow suggest little has changed in their outlook.
“The manner in which the Kremlin is trying to set its terms for negotiations strongly signals that Russia‘s objectives remain unchanged and still amount to full Ukrainian capitulation,” it said, adding: “The Kremlin does not appear any more willing to make concessions to the incoming Trump administration than it was to the current administration.”
