The Kremlin is waiting. Moscow will respond to US ceasefire proposal only when it receives details

Moscow is currently thoroughly analysing the statements that emerged from the talks between US and Ukrainian officials in Saudi Arabia, according to him, Sky News reports.

The proposal is said not to be accepted by Putin

According to Reuters, unnamed Russian sources had earlier reacted guardedly to the US proposal, suggesting that Russian President Vladimir Putin was unlikely to accept it in its current form. According to these officials, any agreement to end the war in Ukraine had to take into account both Russia's territorial gains and Moscow's concerns to date.

Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the foreign affairs committee of Russia's upper house of parliament, stressed that any agreement must be on terms determined by Russia, not the United States.

Trump has begun negotiations with Moscow

The war, which Russia started with its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, has so far claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, displaced millions of people and sparked the biggest rift between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, Reuters reports.

U.S. President Donald Trump has reversed previous policy toward Moscow, resumed bilateral talks with it and temporarily suspended both U.S. military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine.

Both restrictions were finally lifted by the United States on Tuesday after about a week, when Ukraine expressed its willingness to accept a proposal for a 30-day ceasefire with Russia that was put forward by U.S. officials during talks with its representatives in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The ball is now in Russia's court, US diplomatic chief Marco Rubio said after the meeting.

Putin won't stop the war, they are said to be advancing on the front

A senior Russian official told Reuters that it would be difficult for Putin to agree to the idea of a ceasefire without agreeing terms and getting some guarantees. "Putin is in a strong position because Russia is making progress," the source said on condition of anonymity. Without guarantees alongside a ceasefire, he said, Russia's position could quickly weaken and the West could then accuse Moscow of being unable to end the war.

According to another Russian official, the proposal to suspend the fighting acts as a trap from Russia's point of view. He, too, argues that Putin would find it difficult to stop the war without concrete guarantees or promises. A third source, in turn, pointed out that the overall impression is that the United States has agreed to resume military aid and intelligence sharing and has "embellished" the move with a ceasefire proposal.

"Russia is advancing (in Ukraine), and that's why things will be different with Russia," Kosachev said in a post on the Telegram network. "Any agreements - with all understanding of the need for compromise - should be on our terms, not on American terms. And this is not boastfulness, but an understanding that real agreements are still being written there, on the front. They should understand that in Washington, too," he added.

They reject a short-term ceasefire

Reuters recalls that Putin has repeatedly rejected a short-term ceasefire. "We don't need a ceasefire, we need a long-term peace secured by guarantees for the Russian Federation and its citizens. It is a difficult question how to secure these guarantees," he said in December. In January, at a meeting of the Russian Security Council, he in turn suggested that there should not be "any respite to regroup forces and rearm for the subsequent continuation of the conflict."

Putin set out his conditions for ending the war in Ukraine last June. According to them, Ukraine must give up its ambition to join NATO and withdraw troops from all four of its regions claimed by Russia, even though it does not fully control them. According to Russian estimates, Moscow's forces currently control 75 percent of the territory of Ukraine's Donetsk, Zaporizhzhya and Kherson oblasts and more than 99 percent of the territory of Luhansk oblast.