Russia has presented the US with a list of demands for a deal to end its invasion of Ukraine and reset relations with Washington, it has been reported.
The demands were submitted to Washington after Ukraine accepted a 30-day proposal discussed with the US during peace talks in Saudi Arabia on 11 March.
It is unclear what was included in that letter, but former senior British officials who focus on Russia have suggested to The Independent that Moscow will try to extract maximal demands from Washington in exchange for a ceasefire.
They say it is likely to include calling for Ukraine to disarm and for it to be barred from joining Nato or the European Union, tantamount to making Ukraine a “non-country”.
The Ukraine-US talks in Saudi Arabia produced a commitment that the US would renew intelligence and “security support” after suspending both last week following a disastrous White House meeting between President Trump and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky in February.
On Wednesday it emerged that UK officials, including a Downing Street fixer, were reportedly “intimately involved” in brokering the talks.
Below we look at everything we know about the ceasefire deal so far.
What are Vladimir Putin’s demands?
During a press conference in the Kremlin on Thursday, Vladimir Putin said he agreed with the ceasefire but added there were “nuances” that had to be discussed.
He would agree to a truce based on the assumption it would lead to “a long-term peace”, he claimed, adding that any such agreement had to eliminate the “root causes” of the conflict.
The Russian president said Russian forces were moving forward along the entire front line and that the ceasefire would have to ensure that Ukraine did not seek to use it simply to regroup.
While Russian forces have staged a successful counteroffensive in the border region of Kursk in the last week, their attacks in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk have slowed to a halt. Ukrainians have begun launching counterattacks along that eastern line, particularly in Toretsk.
The overwhelming concern among Ukrainians and their European allies is that it is Russia that would use a pause in fighting to regroup and attack Ukraine again.
Ukrainian soldiers in Kursk would have to “surrender or die”, Mr Putin warned. He questioned what would happen to troops currently in Kursk during any truce.
Previously, he has ruled out territorial concessions and said Ukraine must withdraw fully from four Ukrainian regions claimed and partly controlled by Russia. He has also insisted any ceasefire could proceed only if the West gave a guarantee that Ukraine would not join Nato.
What is Ukraine’s reaction?
Mr Zelensky on Tuesday called on Russia to accept the ceasefire deal his team agreed with the United States, posting on social media that Ukraine was ready to accept it.
But following Mr Putin’s revealing his conditions, the Ukrainian leader said Mr Putin wanted to delay a truce and was playing for time.
“Right now, we have all heard from Russia Putin’s highly predictable and manipulative words in response to the idea of a ceasefire on the front lines — at this moment he is, in fact, preparing to reject it,” he said.
“Of course, Putin is afraid to tell President Trump directly that he wants to continue this war and keep killing Ukrainians. That’s why, in Moscow, they are surrounding the ceasefire idea with such preconditions that it either fails or gets dragged out for as long as possible.
“Putin does this often—he doesn’t say ‘no’ outright, but he drags things out and makes reasonable solutions impossible. We see this as yet another round of Russian manipulation.
“There was a US proposal for an unconditional ceasefire—in the air, at sea, and on the front lines. We in Ukraine accepted this proposal.”
He said the Americans were ready to organise, monitor and verify the ceasefire. It was feasible, he said, to put a plan to end the war on the table during the ceasefire.
“We are not setting conditions that complicate the process—Russia is,” he added.
The truce proposals were reportedly drafted with the help of UK national security adviser Jonathan Powell, who visited Mr Zelensky in Kyiv on the weekend. Mr Powell also worked with US counterpart Mike Waltz and German and French officials to fashion a plan for the ceasefire, government sources told the BBC.
Proposals drafted with Mr Powell reportedly included a temporary pause in fighting, prisoner-of-war exchanges and the return of Ukrainian children taken by Russia.
Mr Zelensky says a more permanent ceasefire is not possible without some form of American security guarantees. His ultimate goal is Nato membership for Ukraine but the US appears to have ruled that out.
Previous suggestions that they will not stop fighting until Russian forces are pushed completely out of Ukraine, including from Crimea, seem to have been dropped.
What has the US said?
President Trump, who said he was willing to talk to the Russian leader by phone, called Mr Putin’s statement “very promising” and said he hoped Moscow would “do the right thing”.
But, he added: “Now we’re going to see whether or not Russia is there, and if they’re not, it’ll be a very disappointing moment for the world.”
He said Steve Witkoff, his special envoy, was engaged in serious talks with the Russians in Moscow on the US proposal, which Kyiv has already agreed to.
Mr Trump claims he has received “positive messages” about the ceasefire from Moscow and reiterated on Wednesday that he would “do things financially that would be very bad for Russia” if they did not accept it.
He said that a ceasefire would make sense for Moscow but said there was “a lot of downside for Russia too”, without elaborating.
“We have a very complex situation solved on one side, pretty much solved. We’ve also discussed land and other things that go with it,” he said.
“We know the areas of land we’re talking about, whether it’s pull back or not pull back.”
He acknowledged that positive signals from the Russians meant “nothing” until a deal had been signed. Much of Europe and Ukraine believe Mr Putin’s positive signals will continue to mean nothing even after a peace agreement is signed; history is filled with examples of Russia, under Mr Putin’s leadership, breaking ceasefire agreements, they say.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio, who led the delegation in Saudi Arabia, said after the talks that the US would take the offer to Russia, and the ball is in Moscow’s court. “Our hope is that the Russians will answer ‘yes’ as quickly as possible, so we can get to the second phase of this, which is real negotiations,” he told reporters.
What happens now?
Mr Rubio said the plan would be delivered to the Russians through multiple channels. The Kremlin says it will respond after the US has discussed with them the details of the proposal agreed by Ukraine.
Mr Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, is due to meet his Russian counterpart in the coming days and Mr Witkoff arrived in Moscow on Thursday.
In the meantime, fighting continues. Russian forces are in the middle of a major counteroffensive in the border region of Kursk. They could retake the salient soon, removing a key territorial bargaining chip for Ukraine.
Mr Putin, donning military fatigues, visited troops in Kursk on Wednesday. It is the first time he has visited the frontline in three years of war against Ukraine. It is telling that he did so less than 24 hours after Ukraine agreed to a ceasefire.
Moscow also continues to launch hundreds of missiles and drones at civilian-populated cities and towns across Ukraine each night.
