Putin says ready for ‘direct talks’ with Ukraine but Zelensky says he must agree ceasefire first

Putin made no mention of the proposal made by Kyiv and its allies for a 30-day truce starting Monday during his rare, late-night televised address on Sunday.

He instead proposed holding “direct talks” with Ukraine on Thursday in Istanbul, something not seen since the early weeks of the Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

“We would like to start immediately, already next Thursday, May 15, in Istanbul, where they were held before and where they were interrupted,” Putin said in his address. He emphasized the talks should be held “without any preconditions.”

“We are set on serious negotiations with Ukraine,” Putin said, adding they are intended to “eliminate the root causes of the conflict” and “reach the establishment of a long-term, durable peace.”

Root causes are generally understood to cover a range of Russian grievances, from NATO’s expansion eastwards to the size of Ukraine’s military.

Putin’s address came just hours after the leaders of Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Poland stood alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv and urged Putin to agree to a 30-day ceasefire starting on Monday or face possible “massive sanctions.”

Reacting to Putin’s proposal for direct talks, Zelensky said his country was “ready to meet” Russia for talks.

“It is a positive sign that the Russians have finally begun to consider ending the war,” wrote the President in a post on X. “The entire world has been waiting for this for a very long time. And the very first step in truly ending any war is a ceasefire.”

Zelensky added that “there is no point in continuing the killing even for a single day” and said he expects Russia to confirm a “full, lasting, and reliable” ceasefire starting on May 12.

Speaking on Sunday, France’s President Emmanuel Macron said Putin’s proposal for negotiations was “not enough.”

“An unconditional ceasefire is not preceded by negotiations, by definition,” he told reporters, adding that Putin was “looking for a way out, but he still wants to buy time.”

The demand for an unconditional ceasefire comes with the backing of the White House after a joint phone call with US President Donald Trump, the Europeans said on Saturday.

Hours after Putin’s proposal, Trump posted on his social network Truth Social that it was a “potentially great day for Russia and Ukraine!”

“I will continue to work with both sides to make sure that it happens,” he said, urging people to “think of the hundreds of thousands of lives that will be saved” from the “never ending bloodbath.”

 

For two months now, Ukraine has said it wants an immediate 30-day ceasefire. But Russia has so far refused to commit, saying it supports the idea of a pause in principle, but insists there are what it calls “nuances” that need addressing first.

On Sunday, Putin denied that Moscow has refused dialogue with Kyiv and said the “decision now lies with the Ukrainian authorities.”

“We do not exclude that during these talks there will be a possibility to arrange some kind of new truce, a new ceasefire,” he said.

He called the proposed talks “a first step to a long-lasting stable peace but not a prologue to the continuation of an armed conflict after re-armament and re-equipping of Ukrainian armed forces and feverish digging of trenches in new strongholds.”

Trump has made ending the war in Ukraine one of his priorities and he has invested much effort into trying to get Putin on board. His special envoy Steve Witkoff went to Russia four times to meet with Putin and there have been several other high-level meetings between US and Russian officials since Trump returned to the White House in January.

But despite offering some previously unthinkable concessions to Russia, the Trump administration has not been able to get Russia to agree to the limited ceasefire proposal, intended as opening a path towards a permanent truce.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told CNN that Russia is “very grateful” for Washington’s mediation efforts, but added that “at the same time, it’s quite useless to try to press on us.”

This story has been updated with additional information. 

CNN’s Andrew Carey, Nick Paton Walsh, Lucas Lilieholm and Ivana Kottasova contributed to this report.