Putin aide rejects plan for Ukraine ceasefire

A Russian negotiator rejected a US-brokered ceasefire plan as Moscow pushes back Ukrainian troops in Kursk.

Iryna Petrochenko , 50, looks out from damaged apartment after a Russian missile attack happened killing a 47-year-old woman and wounding nine others on March 12 in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine. Picture: Getty Images

A Russian negotiator rejected a proposed ceasefire in Ukraine brokered by the US, as the Kremlin said its forces were in the final stages of ousting Ukraine’s army from Russia’s Kursk region.

Yuri Ushakov, a senior aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, said the 30-day ceasefire would allow Ukraine’s forces time to regroup.

“This is nothing other than a temporary time-out for Ukrainian soldiers, nothing more. Our goal is a long-term peaceful resolution,” he told Russian state television on Thursday. “Steps that imitate peaceful actions are not needed.”

His comments were the first public response from Moscow to a US-backed proposal agreed by Ukraine this week to pause the war, now in its fourth year. They came as President Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, was headed to Moscow to discuss the ceasefire proposal, according to two US officials. Ushakov said he spoke on Wednesday with US national security adviser Mike Waltz, and had communicated Russia’s stance.

Moscow in the past has repeatedly ruled out an interim cease-fire and voiced skepticism about any peace talks, insisting that a lasting agreement would take time.

Putin has cited a draft treaty drawn up by Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in April 2022, weeks after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began. That document envisions a postwar Ukraine as a disarmed and permanently neutral state unaligned with any military blocs.

Moscow insists on keeping at a minimum the 18 per cent of Ukrainian territory it already controls in any peace deal. It wants to reverse policies that have sidelined Russian cultural influence in Ukraine and preclude the country’s membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

With its army advancing on the battlefield and retaking territory Ukraine had hoped to use as a bargaining chip, Russia has little incentive to stop the fighting.

Its military said Thursday that it had retaken Sudzha, the biggest town held by Ukraine in the Kursk region, after recapturing a string of villages in recent days. Ukraine didn’t respond to a request for comment. Kyiv has been using Sudzha as a logistical hub to resupply troops in the area.

Putin visited a command post in Kursk on Wednesday, his first time in the region since Ukraine’s incursion there.

“Our immediate goal is as soon as possible to conclusively destroy the enemy entrenched on the territory of Kursk region,” Putin said, dressed in military fatigues as he addressed top generals.

Destruction in the town of Sudzha in the Kursk region. Picture: Russian Defence Ministry / AFP

The rapid retreat of Ukraine’s forces in Kursk followed a pause in US military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine in the wake of an Oval Office confrontation between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and President Trump. Washington said it would restart military aid after Ukraine agreed to the terms of a ceasefire during a meeting in Saudi Arabia this week.

The loss of Ukraine’s toehold in Kursk, where at one point it had captured an area roughly the size of Los Angeles city, would mark a significant defeat for Kyiv. Russia has thrown enormous resources into the campaign to recapture its territory, deploying North Korean troops and staging daring operations. One unit crawled through a disused section of a natural gas pipeline this week to outflank Ukrainian troops defending Sudzha, with several dying of methane poisoning, according to pro-Kremlin war bloggers.

Critics of the Kursk operation, including some in Ukraine, said the incursion into Russia had drained resources and manpower from strained parts of the Ukrainian front line. Zelensky has argued that control of Russian territory would provide leverage in any future negotiations to end the war.

On Wednesday, Oleksandr Syrskiy, the commander of Ukraine’s armed forces, said his highest priority was to safeguard the lives of Ukrainian troops.

“To do this, the units of the Defense Forces, if necessary, manoeuvre to more favourable positions,” he said in a post on social media. He added that Sudzha has been almost completely destroyed by fighting.”

The Wall Street Journal