CNN
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Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed holding “direct talks” with Ukraine on Thursday in Istanbul, as European leaders and the United States attempt to push Moscow to agree to a 30-day ceasefire to bring an end to the three-year conflict.
“We would like to start immediately, already next Thursday, May 15, in Istanbul, where they were held before and where they were interrupted,” Putin said in a rare late-night televised address. He emphasized the talks should be held “without any preconditions.”
“We are set on serious negotiations with Ukraine,” Putin said, adding they are intended to “eliminate the root causes of the conflict” and “reach the establishment of a long-term, durable peace.”
The proposal came just hours after the leaders of Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Poland stood alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv and urged Putin to agree to a 30-day ceasefire starting on Monday or face possible “massive sanctions,” according to French President Emmanuel Macron.
The demand comes with the backing of the White House after a joint phone call with US President Donald Trump, the Europeans said.
Shortly after the leaders called for a ceasefire, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that Russia is “resistant to any kind of pressure.”
“Europe is actually confronting us very openly,” Peskov said, adding that Putin supports the idea of a ceasefire “in general,” but “there are lots of questions” about the recent proposal that still need answering. He did not expand on what these questions are.
Ukraine and Russia have not held direct talks since the early weeks of Moscow’s invasion in 2022. Putin said Sunday he would speak with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan about holding talks with Kyiv.
For two months now, Ukraine has said it wants an immediate 30-day ceasefire – a position promoted by Kyiv’s key European allies, and also by Trump.
Russia has so far refused to commit, saying it supports the idea of a 30-day pause in principle, but insists there are what it calls “nuances” that need addressing first.
On Sunday, Putin denied that Moscow has refused dialogue with Kyiv and said the “decision now lies with the Ukrainian authorities.”
“We do not exclude that during these talks there will be a possibility to arrange some kind of new truce, a new ceasefire,” he said.
He called the proposed talks “a first step to a long-lasting stable peace but not a prologue to the continuation of an armed conflict after re-armament and re-equipping of Ukrainian armed forces and feverish digging of trenches in new strongholds.”
Putin has often spoken about the need to address what he calls “root causes” – which are taken to mean, among others, the eastward expansion of NATO.
In a Truth Social post on Thursday, Trump wrote that “if the ceasefire is not respected, the US and its partners will impose further sanctions,” adding to a sense he is growing frustrated with Russian stalling.
Trump has made ending the war in Ukraine one of his priorities and he has invested much effort into trying to get Putin on board. His special envoy Steve Witkoff went to Russia four times to meet with Putin and there have been several other high-level meetings between US and Russian officials since Trump returned to the White House in January.
But despite offering some previously unthinkable concessions to Russia, the Trump administration has not been able to get Russia to agree to the limited ceasefire proposal, intended as opening a path towards a permanent truce.
Last month, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio threatened the US would walk away from the talks if there is no progress. Instead, the US is now joining Ukraine’s other Western allies in trying to put more pressure on Russia.
Peskov told CNN Saturday that Russia is “very grateful” for Washington’s mediation efforts, but added that “at the same time, it’s quite useless to try to press on us.”
This story has been updated with additional information.
CNN’s Andrew Carey, Nick Paton Walsh, and Ivana Kottasova contributed to this report.