(Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin’s suggestion of a ceasefire in Ukraine to halt the war was rejected by the United States after contacts between intermediaries, three Russian sources with knowledge of the discussions told Reuters.
The failure of Putin’s approach ushers in the third year of the deadliest conflict in Europe since the Second World War and illustrates the distance separating the world’s two largest nuclear powers.
A US source denied that there had been any official contact and said that Washington would not get involved in negotiations that did not involve Ukraine.
Putin sent signals to Washington in 2023, in public and in private, through intermediaries including Moscow’s Arab partners in the Middle East and others, that he was ready to consider a ceasefire in Ukraine, the Russian sources said.
Putin was proposing to freeze the conflict on current lines and was not willing to cede any Russian-controlled Ukrainian territory, but the signal offered what some in the Kremlin saw as the best path to some kind of peace.
“Contacts with the Americans came to nothing,” a senior Russian source with knowledge of the discussions in late 2023 and early 2024 told Reuters on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation.
A second Russian source with knowledge of the contacts told Reuters that the Americans told Moscow, through intermediaries, that they would not discuss a possible ceasefire without Ukraine’s participation and therefore the contacts failed.
A third source with knowledge of the discussions said: “Everything went downhill with the Americans.” The source said that the Americans did not want to put pressure on Ukraine.
The extent of the contacts — and their failure — was not previously reported.
This comes at a time when US President Joe Biden has for months been pressing Congress to approve more aid for Ukraine, but faces opposition from allies of the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, Donald Trump.
The Kremlin, the White House, the US State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) declined to comment.
*** Translated by DEFCONPress FYI Team ***