Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov during a summit of leaders of nations, which are members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), in Moscow, Russia October 8, 2024.
Sergei Ilnitsky | Via Reuters
All eyes were on Moscow on Wednesday as the Kremlin broke its silence and delivered its initial reaction to Kyiv and the White House’s unilateral agreement proposing a temporary ceasefire to the war in Ukraine.
Talks between U.S. and Ukrainian officials in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday ended with Ukraine agreeing to an immediate 30-day ceasefire negotiated by the U.S. — but Russia must still accept the measures.
As part of the plan, the U.S. will lift its pause on military aid to Ukraine and restart the intelligence-sharing it had also halted in recent weeks. Following the Tuesday talks, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the ball was now in Russia’s court.
On Wednesday, the Kremlin issued a cautious response to the development, saying it needed to hear more details on the plan from U.S. negotiators before it could fully decide whether the proposed ceasefire agreement was acceptable or not.
“You are jumping the gun, we have contacts scheduled with the Americans and then we’ll see,” Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov told reporters when asked to comment on the proposed truce, according to NBC News reporting.
“We are carefully studying the statements made as a result [of the talks], we will familiarize ourselves with the text of the joint statement which was adopted in Jeddah. We proceed from the fact that, as was said yesterday in Jeddah, Secretary of State Rubio and National Security Advisor Waltz will inform us via various channels these days about the details of the negotiations that took place and the understandings reached [there],” he added.
Peskov signaled that Moscow did not rule out a phone call between Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump over the matter.
“If such a need arises, it will be organized very quickly. The existing channels for dialogue with the Americans allow this to be done rather swiftly,” he said.
U.S Secretary of State Marco Rubio, U.S National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha and Ukrainian Head of Presidential Office Andriy Yermak hold a meeting in the presence of Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan and National Security Advisor Mosaad bin Mohammad Al-Aiban, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, March 11, 2025.
Saul Loeb | Via Reuters
Russia had appeared to enjoy the thawing of relations between Moscow and Donald Trump’s new administration, which marked an improvement from Moscow’s estrangement from the U.S. during Joe Biden’s White House presidency. Tensions between Washington and Kyiv have meanwhile been ramping up and ultimately erupted in late February in a spectacular shouting match between U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The resumption of diplomatic relations and of military aid between U.S. and Ukraine now puts the pressure back on Russia to show whether it is serious about finding a deal to end the war.
Muted reaction
Russia’s leadership must now work out how to respond to what analyst Andrius Tursa, Central and Eastern Europe advisor at risk consultancy Teneo, described as “a ceasefire curveball for Moscow” that puts pressure on the Kremlin to accept the agreement.
So far, there has been a mixed reaction to the development from other senior Russian officials.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov carefully avoided mention of the talks in an interview with U.S. bloggers splashed across Russian state media Wednesday, but Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova told state media that Russia would not be pushed into action after the latest talks, saying “the main news for us will come from here.”
“Establishment of the Russian Federation’s position does not happen abroad due to some agreements or efforts of some parties. The establishment of the position of the Russian Federation happens within the Russian Federation,” she said, according to an NBC News translation.
Meanwhile, Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the international affairs committee of the upper house of Russia’s parliament, on Wednesday said that any deal would be on Moscow’s terms, not Washington’s.
“Russia is advancing [in Ukraine], and therefore it will be different with Russia,” he said on Telegram, according to NBC News reporting. “Real agreements are still being written there, at the front. Which they should understand in Washington, too.”
Putin’s dilemma
Analysts say the rapprochement between the U.S and Ukraine “places Putin in something of a quandary.”
“If Putin decides not to support the push for a temporary ceasefire, it will dramatically alter the optics of the war and position Russia as the main obstacle to peace,” Peter Dickinson from the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service, said in analysis Tuesday.
“This places Putin in something of a quandary. Despite suffering heavy battlefield losses, his armies continue to advance slowly but steadily in Ukraine. Meanwhile, dramatic recent changes in U.S. foreign policy have increased his sense of confidence that the international coalition supporting the Ukrainian war effort is finally fracturing,” Dickinson noted.
As such, Putin is likely to be “understandably reluctant to embrace U.S. calls for an immediate ceasefire,” Dickinson noted, adding: “At the same time, he knows that if he rejects Trump’s peace overtures, this will likely derail the broad reset in U.S.-Russian relations that the new United States administration has been signaling since January.”
