Russia has presented the U.S. with a list of demands for a potential deal to end the war against Ukraine and reset relations with Washington, Reuters reported on March 13, citing two undisclosed sources.
According to the sources, Russian and U.S. officials discussed these demands during face-to-face and virtual conversations over the past three weeks. These broad conditions are said to largely mirror those Russia has previously made to Ukraine, the U.S., and NATO.
The exact content of the list remains unclear, however, as does the issue of whether Russia is willing to engage in peace talks with Kyiv before these conditions are met.
Russia’s previously voiced conditions have included Ukraine permanently abandoning NATO aspirations, prohibiting foreign troop deployments on Ukrainian soil, and recognizing Crimea and four partially occupied regions — the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts — as Russian territory.
In June 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted that Ukraine must withdraw from those four regions as a precondition for negotiations.
President Volodymyr Zelensky reiterated on March 12 that Ukraine would not recognize any occupied territories as part of Russia in any future peace agreement.
Despite U.S. President Donald Trump’s claim on Feb. 24 that Putin would allow European peacekeepers in Ukraine as part of a deal, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has rejected the idea.
30-day ceasefire deal may be struck within days, Rubio says
“Here’s what we’d like the world to look like in a few days: Neither side is shooting at each other — not rockets, not missiles, not bullets, nothing, not artillery,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on March 12. “The shooting stops, the fighting stops, and the talking starts.”
Russia has also continued to push its long-standing demand that the U.S. and NATO address what it calls the “root causes” of the war, including the alliance’s eastward expansion.
Ukraine officially submitted its application to NATO in September 2022. Though NATO members pledged that Ukraine’s path toward membership is “irreversible” at the allied summit in Washington in 2024, the Trump administration has ruled out the accession in the foreseeable future.
Trump is waiting to hear from Putin on whether Russia will agree to a 30-day ceasefire that Ukraine has already accepted on the condition that Moscow does as well. Ukraine agreed to the proposal for the temporary truce during talks in Jeddah on March 11, after which Washington resumed military and intelligence support.
Putin’s response to the ceasefire proposal remains uncertain. Some U.S. officials and analysts fear that Moscow will use the temporary pause to deepen divisions between Washington, Kyiv, and their European allies while preparing for further offensives, Reuters writes.
The Washington Post reported on a document drafted by a Moscow think tank close to the Federal Security Service (FSB) that lays out Russia’s potential maximalist demands for ending the war. These include a buffer zone in northeastern Ukraine along the borders of Bryansk and Belgorod oblasts and a demilitarized zone in southern Ukraine.
The document, drafted in February, further calls for “the complete dismantling” of Ukraine’s current government and says that peace is unlikely before 2026. It is unclear what — if any — role this document plays in the Kremlin’s decision-making.
Western security officials told Bloomberg on March 10 that Putin has deliberately set “maximalist” demands on territorial concessions, peacekeepers, and Ukraine’s neutrality, knowing they are likely unacceptable to Kyiv and European nations.
Ukrainian drones set ablaze Russian factory, infrastructure site overnight, authorities claim
Russian air defenses downed 77 drones overnight, including 30 over Bryansk Oblast, 25 over Kaluga Oblast, six over Kursk and Voronezh oblasts each, and five over Rostov and Belgorod oblasts each, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed.
