Russian President Vladimir Putin promised on June 14 to \u201cimmediately\u201d order a cease-fire in Ukraine and begin negotiations if Kyiv started withdrawing troops from the four regions annexed by Moscow in 2022 and renounced plans to join NATO.<\/p>\n

Such a deal appears a nonstarter for Kyiv, which wants to join the military alliance and has demanded that Russia withdraw its troops from all of its territory. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine on Mr. Putin’s proposal. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe will do it immediately,\u201d Mr. Putin said in a speech at the Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow.<\/p>\n

His remarks came as leaders of the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations<\/a> met in Italy and as Switzerland prepared to host scores<\/a> of world leaders\u2014 but not from Moscow\u2014 this weekend to try to map out the first steps toward peace in Ukraine. The U.S. and Ukraine this week also signed a 10-year security agreement that they hailed as a milestone in relations.<\/p>\n

Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine<\/a> in February 2022. After Ukrainian forces thwarted a Russian drive to the capital, much of the fighting has focused in the south and east\u2014 and Russia illegally annexed regions in the east and the south, although it doesn\u2019t fully control any of them.<\/p>\n

Mr. Putin said his proposal is aimed at a \u201cfinal resolution\u201d of the conflict in Ukraine rather than \u201cfreezing it,” and stressed that the Kremlin is \u201cready to start negotiations without delay.\u201d<\/p>\n

Broader demands for peace that the Russian leader listed included Ukraine’s non-nuclear status, restrictions on its military force and protection of the interests of the Russian-speaking population in the country. All of these should become part of \u201cfundamental international agreements,\u201d and all Western sanctions against Russia should be lifted, Mr. Putin said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re urging to turn this tragic page of history and to begin restoring, step-by-step, restore the unity between Russia and Ukraine and in Europe in general,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Mr. Putin\u2019s remarks represented a rare occasion in which he clearly laid out his conditions for ending the war in Ukraine, but it didn\u2019t include any new demands. The Kremlin has said before that Kyiv should recognize its territorial gains and drop its bid to join NATO. <\/p>\n

Russia doesn’t fully control any of the four regions it illegally annexed in 2022, but Mr. Putin insisted on June 14 that Kyiv should withdraw from them entirely and essentially cede them to Moscow within their administrative borders. In Zaporizhzhia in the southeast, Russia still doesn’t control the region’s namesake administrative capital with a pre-war population of about 700,000, and in the neighbouring Kherson region, Moscow withdrew from Kherson’s biggest city and capital of the same name in November 2022. <\/p>\n

Mr. Putin said that if \u201cKyiv and Western capitals\u201d reject his offer, \u201cit is their business, their political and moral responsibility for continuing the bloodshed.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Russia\u2019s President Vladimir Putin. | Photo Credit: AFP Russian President Vladimir Putin promised on June 14 to \u201cimmediately\u201d order a cease-fire in Ukraine and begin negotiations if Kyiv started withdrawing troops from the four regions annexed by Moscow in 2022 and renounced plans to join NATO. Such a deal appears a nonstarter for Kyiv, which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67836,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[52769,9968,1116,4638,25045,4870],"class_list":{"0":"post-67835","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news","8":"tag-kremlin","9":"tag-nato","10":"tag-russia-ukraine","11":"tag-russia-ukraine-crisis","12":"tag-russian-president","13":"tag-vladimir-putin"},"yoast_head":"\n