Watch Putin’s Comments on a Possible Ceasefire Deal with Ukraine

President Trump’s special envoy, Steve Woodcocks, has now arrived in Moscow to brief Kremlin officials on the Ukraine ceasefire proposal. Earlier today, though, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he has, quote, reservations about the 30 day ceasefire, adding that there are still many things that need to be discussed before a deal gets done.
we agree with the proposals to end hostilities, but we proceed from the fact that this end should be such that it would lead to long term peace and eliminate the root causes of the crisis. But I think that we need to talk about this with our American colleagues, partners, maybe call President Trump and discuss it with him.
But the idea itself to end this conflict by peaceful means is supported by us CNN chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward is live in Kyiv. Clarissa, taking a look at the reaction from Russia, which is so essential. Right. You heard a white House official saying, If Russia does not accept this, then they’ll know who the impediment to pieces.
How are you reading what we’re hearing out of the Kremlin? Well, I think it’s somewhat enigmatic response. but roughly along the lines of what we expected in the sense that President Putin was very keen to heap praise upon President Trump. He called the idea in principle great. He expressed gratitude. But then he went on to basically delineate a number of issues that Russia would want clarification on whether this is a stalling tactic designed to give Russia more time, or whether this is an act of sincerely engaging
in this process in a meaningful way, remains to be seen. One of the issues that he brought up was the issue of Kursk, where Russian forces have essentially now isolated the Ukrainian forces and a withdrawal of Ukrainian forces. Looks like it’s already underway, but certainly we’re talking days, not weeks before course will likely fall back under complete Russian control.
he also raised the issue of will it be possible for Ukraine during this 30 days to re mobilize? Will it be possible for them to regroup, reconstitute, rearm? What kind of guarantees could we be given that that wouldn’t happen? What kind of guarantees can we be given in terms of how the ceasefire will be monitored, or how it will be enforced? And who gets to say when hostilities actually stop? So some will interpret this as sort of willful filibustering, if you will.
And certainly when we heard from the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky this morning, this was before Putin spoke, I should add, he said, look, it’s pretty much clear from the silence that we’re hearing from Russia that they’re not interested in meaningfully engaging with peace, that they want this war to continue grinding on.
I don’t think that we can make that, conclusion Deductively from what President Putin said during his meeting, during his press conference with the Belarussian president, Lukashenko. But it will be very interesting, I would say, Brianna, embarrassed to hear later on after all those meetings and conversations with Trump’s envoy, would come to an end, whether there is a sort of plan of action for moving forward because, again, Putin had left that pretty ambiguous.
He said maybe he would talk to President Trump in the coming days, none of that giving any sense of urgency that this is an issue that is going to be addressed and clarified and put into practice in the near future, as the U.S. had hoped. David, I wonder what you make of the timing here that the NATO secretary general meeting with Donald Trump was set to hear from them directly.
And just moments as we’re hearing Vladimir Putin say sort of yes to this deal, but also no. So the timing of of, Secretary General Ruto showing up. It’s a little bit coincidental. I don’t think anybody knew when they scheduled that, that this would also be the day that you’d be sending Steve White coffin to Moscow and so forth.
I think, yes, but is exactly the right answer. And Clarissa had had this just right. Putin’s in a tough spot here. He can’t be seen as the one party who’s saying I won’t do a ceasefire? And yet a ceasefire is not in his interest right now while they’re taking back Russian territory that the Ukrainians had seized.
And while he thinks he’s on the march, the second problem he’s got is that he’s concerned that the cease fire will be something he can’t get out of. And what he really wants is if there is a long term ceasefire to have a number of different issues. Ukraine can’t enter NATO that, along the way, Russia will be able to resolve what they called their long historic issues, which is essentially that Ukraine is a part of, of of Russia.
So, he’s a little afraid of being jammed. And I think you’re seeing him wiggle his way through. Yeah. And I wonder what you think about what you’re hearing of that, especially considering this idea of the Kursk piece of this where he says it’s not clear how the situation would develop in Kursk and elsewhere if a cease fire was implemented.
That development in Kursk of Russia, taking back that territory is something that happens since the U.S. suspended, it’s now been reinstated but suspended military aid to the Ukrainians. So in a way, there’s almost this cycle. The U.S. takes an action. We see Russia taking back Kursk. And now that seems to be dissuading them in at least one of these elements for wanting to get on board.
Well, they haven’t completely taken Kursk back, but but they’ve almost got all the territory saying it’s the the vast majority of it. Right? but what I’m watching for is how will Trump react to not the know, but the explanation is beyond, you know, where Trump said, you know, he accepts the concept of a cease fire, but it was translated from the Russian as with nuances and then his spokesperson and others have filled in some those nuances that they need to see a new administration in Ukraine.
They need to see the world community recognize their annexation of four sections of eastern Ukraine that they don’t completely even control right now. that it the list goes on and on. So my question will be how is Trump going to respond to that? Will he be convinced by Putin’s arguments as he has in the past? And I suspect Putin doesn’t want to have those full throated arguments, or until he’s face to face with Trump, so he can explain in a reasonable manner.
You can expect us to do a cease fire and still have a standing Ukrainian army that could attack Kursk at any time. It does lend itself to Trump’s sort of political history, the rare vision that he’s held politically his entire political life is that other countries are ripping off the United States. He points to NATO and says that he points to Canada and says that European allies as well.
How does that play politically now that he’s actually pursuing that as a policy? Well, what’s interesting is that in theory, you would think the United States public appreciates NATO, right? They understand that NATO protects us. However, the reality is, is that these folks are also hurting at home. They’re also seeing their friends being rounded up who have who have lived in their neighborhoods for for many, many years.
They’re seeing a chaotic country right now. They’re seeing the federal government being cut, people losing jobs. Then they look over at NATO and say, why isn’t NATO paying their 2% of GDP? Why are we doing that? Look at my family right now that is hurting so politically. It plays well for Donald Trump.
The reality is way down the road. I mean, talk to Kim or David and they will tell you if we don’t have the United States and NATO together, that we are in big trouble. And I wonder, especially as we hear Putin saying that they have to look at the root causes of the crisis, which, of course, we’ve heard before.
one of those, being the current Ukrainian government, we should say, that is something that he’s looking at as the root cause of the crisis. He wants a Lenski to go. How will it be received in Ukraine if what we hear from Trump is a. Oh, but look, Russia didn’t say no. I think that it is no exaggeration to say that the Ukrainians have been through an emotional rollercoaster over the past few weeks, with everything that happened between Zelensky and Trump in the Oval Office.
I think that there was a huge amount of relief and even triumph, honestly, coming out of those meetings in Jeddah that it seemed like the relationship was back on track, but it seemed like Ukraine could take control of the narrative again and essentially say, listen, we are not the obstacle to peace here. We are ready for it.
The onus is now on Russia, and I think there will be some serious disappointment, and even some eye rolling, if President Trump, takes Putin completely at his word and doesn’t apply some rigorous skepticism him to what is going on here. And I think also, frankly, if we’re being honest, the Ukrainians would like to see a wedge driven between, this sort of kinship that we have seen between President Putin and President Trump.
They would like to see President Trump get exasperated with President Putin and lose his patience, even with President Putin. And it remains to be seen what the response will be. I mean, I just heard some tidbits, from earlier where it said that President Trump had interpreted Putin’s comments as being promising, so unlikely that we’re necessarily going to see that wedge any time soon.
But the Ukrainians understood stand in principle that the most important thing here, going forward through trials and tribulations, is to keep that relationship on track. I spoke to one former minister. He said, we need this relationship to be less about emotion and more about common sense.