Russia lays out demands for talks with US on Ukraine, sources say

WASHINGTON – Russia has presented the US with a list of demands for a deal to end its war against Ukraine and reset relations with Washington, according to two people familiar with the matter.

It is not clear what exactly Moscow included on its list or whether it is willing to engage in peace talks with Kyiv prior to their acceptance. Russian and American officials discussed the terms during in-person and virtual conversations over the last three weeks, the sources said.

They described the Kremlin’s terms as broad and similar to demands that it had previously presented to Ukraine, the US and Nato. 

Those earlier terms included no Nato membership for Kyiv, an agreement not to deploy foreign troops in Ukraine, and international recognition of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claim that Crimea and four provinces belong to Russia.

Russia, in recent years, has also demanded that the US and Nato address what it has called the “root causes” of the war, including Nato’s eastward expansion.

US President Donald Trump is awaiting word from Mr Putin on whether he will agree to a 30-day truce that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on March 11 he would accept as a first step towards peace talks.

Mr Putin’s commitment to a potential ceasefire agreement is still uncertain, with details yet to be finalised. 

Some US officials, lawmakers and experts fear that Mr Putin, a former KGB officer, would use a truce to intensify what they say is an effort to divide the US, Ukraine and Europe and undermine any talks.

The Russian embassy in Washington and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In Kyiv, Mr Zelensky hailed this week’s meeting in Saudi Arabia between US and Ukrainian officials as constructive, and said a potential 30-day ceasefire with Russia could be used to draft a broader peace deal.

Moscow has raised many of these same demands over the last two decades, some making their way into formal negotiations with the US and Europe.

Most recently, Russia discussed them with the Biden administration in a series of meetings in late 2021 and early 2022 as tens of thousands of Russian troops sat on Ukraine’s border, awaiting the order to invade.

The terms included demands that would constrain US and Nato military operations from Eastern Europe to Central Asia.

While rejecting some of the terms, the Biden administration sought to forestall the invasion by engaging Russia on several of them, according to US government documents reviewed by Reuters and multiple former US officials.

The effort failed and

Russia attacked Ukraine on Feb 24, 2022

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US and Russian officials in recent weeks have said that a draft agreement discussed by Washington, Kyiv and Moscow in Istanbul in 2022 could be a starting point for peace talks. The agreement never went through.

In those talks, Russia demanded that Ukraine give up its Nato ambitions and accept a permanent nuclear-free status.

Russia also demanded a veto over actions by countries that wanted to assist Ukraine in the event of war.

The Trump administration has not explained how it is approaching its negotiations with Moscow. The two sides are engaged in two separate conversations: one on resetting US-Russia relations and the other on a Ukraine peace agreement.

The administration appears to be divided on how to proceed.

US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, who is helping lead the discussion with Moscow, in February on CNN described the Istanbul talks as “cogent and substantive negotiations” and said that they could be “a guidepost to get a peace deal done”.

But Mr Trump’s top Ukraine and Russia envoy, retired general Keith Kellogg, told a Council on Foreign Relations audience last week that he did not see the Istanbul agreement as a starting point.

“I think we have to develop something entirely new,” he said.

Old demands

Experts say Russia’s demands are likely intended to not only shape an eventual agreement with Ukraine, but also to be the basis of accords with its Western supporters.

Russia has made similar demands of the US over the last two decades – demands that would limit the West’s ability to build a stronger military presence in Europe and potentially allow Mr Putin to expand his influence on the continent.

“There’s no sign that the Russians are willing to make any concessions,” said Ms Angela Stent, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who was the top US intelligence analyst for Russia and Eurasia. “The demands haven’t changed at all. I think they are not really interested in peace or a meaningful ceasefire.”

In their effort to forestall what US intelligence officials concluded was an imminent Russian invasion, senior Biden administration officials engaged with Russian counterparts on three of the Kremlin's demands, according to the US government documents reviewed by Reuters.

They were a ban on military exercises by US and other Nato forces on the territories of new alliance members and a ban on US intermediate-range missile deployments in Europe or elsewhere within range of Russian territory, according to the documents.

The Russians also sought to bar military exercises by the US or Nato from Eastern Europe to the Caucasus and Central Asia, the documents showed.

“These are the same Russian demands that have been made since 1945,” said former Pentagon official Kori Schake, who directs foreign and defence policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

“With the behaviour of the Trump administration in recent weeks, Europeans aren’t just scared we’re abandoning them, they’re afraid we’ve joined the enemy.”

Meanwhile, Mr Putin, dressed in military fatigues, ordered top commanders to defeat Ukrainian forces in the western region of Kursk as soon as possible.

Ukrainian forces had smashed across the Russian border on Aug 6, 2024, and grabbed a slice of land inside Russia in a bid to distract Moscow’s forces from the front line in eastern Ukraine and to gain a potential bargaining chip.

But a lightning Russian advance over the past few days has left Ukraine with a sliver of less than 200 sq km in Kursk, down from 1,300 sq km at the peak of the incursion last summer, according to the Russian military.

“Our task in the near future, in the shortest possible timeframe, is to decisively defeat the enemy entrenched in the Kursk region,” Mr Putin told generals in remarks televised late on March 12. “And, of course, we need to think about creating a security zone along the state border.” REUTERS