Zelenskiy Says Ukraine Will Talk Once Russia Agrees To Truce

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine was ready to meet for talks with Russia — but only after Vladimir Putin agrees to an unconditional 30-day ceasefire, which the Russian president so far hasn’t done. 

“We expect Russia to confirm a ceasefire – full, lasting, and reliable – starting tomorrow, May 12th, and Ukraine is ready to meet,” Zelenskiy posted on X. “It is a positive sign that the Russians have finally begun to consider ending the war.” 

Putin overnight proposed direct talks with Ukraine in Istanbul on May 15, but didn’t address the ultimatum made on Saturday by Ukraine and its Western allies to either move forward with a temporary truce or face crippling new sanctions.

With both sides staking out their positions, the onus will now be on Kyiv’s allies to prove they can deliver on their threats if Russia fails to halt hostilities. European leaders said they had President Donald Trump’s backing for the ultimatum; the US president on Thursday called for a 30-day ceasefire and threatened to impose further sanctions if a truce isn’t “respected.”

Putin said he wouldn’t discount an agreement on a temporary ceasefire to halt hostilities coming out of proposed talks in Turkey. “We do not rule out that during these negotiations it will be possible to agree on some new truces, on a new ceasefire,” he said.

Kremlin forces, meanwhile, resumed air strikes overnight, firing more than 100 drones at targets across much of Ukraine, including Kyiv. Ground positions in Ukraine’s east were fired on thousands of times in the past 24 hours, the army’s General Staff said.

“Russia must not hide its desire to continue war behind words,” Andriy Yermak, Zelenskiy’s top aide, said Sunday on Telegram. “Ceasefire first for 30 days, everything else after.” French President Emmanuel Macron, who visited Kyiv on Saturday with leaders of the UK, Germany and Poland, echoed the point in a post on X, saying: “there can be no negotiations while weapons are speaking.”

After Putin told reporters at the Kremlin overnight that Russia was “in the mood for serious talks with Ukraine,” Trump hailed “a potentially great day for Russia and Ukraine!” in comments on his Truth Social platform.  

Putin spoke hours after Ukraine and European powers demanded Russia join an “unconditional” 30-day truce in advance of any talks on ending the war, now well into its fourth year. 

In his late-night comments to reporters at the Kremlin, Putin said talks should deal with the root causes of the conflict in Ukraine and establishing a lasting peace. Moscow’s proposal is to resume direct negotiations with Kyiv halted in late March 2022 “without any preconditions,” he added. “We do not rule out that during these negotiations it will be possible to agree on some new truces.”

The earlier talks — weeks after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 — collapsed after the massacre of Ukrainian civilians by Russian forces was uncovered on the outskirts of Kyiv, including in the town of Bucha.

Putin said he plans to speak with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday about his plans. Turkey played a key role in brokering the Black Sea Grain Initiative in 2022, which allowed the safe export of Ukrainian grain. Russian ultimately withdrew from the pact. Turkey also hosted talks in March 2022 that failed to produce peace.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to be in Turkey this week for an informal meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Antalya from May 14.

The allied ceasefire plan was announced after Zelenskiy met with the leaders of France, Germany, the UK and Poland in Kyiv on Saturday. The five men then discussed the proposal in a call with Trump that was described by Zelenskiy as “positive and concrete.”

In Washington, Senator Lindsey Graham, a top Republican ally of Trump, has said he has a bipartisan commitment for a bill to enact “bone-crushing” new sanctions on Moscow and tariffs on countries that buy its oil, gas and other key products if Putin doesn’t engage in serious talks to halt the war.

While Russia is open to dialogue on settling the conflict in Ukraine, it is “resistant to any kinds of pressure,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told CNN on Saturday.

Diplomacy to end the longest and bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War II has intensified after several meetings between European, US and Ukrainian envoys, including in London and Paris, and after Zelenskiy met Trump at the Vatican on April 26.

Putin has maintained maximalist positions for any ceasefire. That includes Russian control of four eastern and southeastern Ukrainian regions it annexed illegally in the 2022 full-scale invasion but doesn’t fully occupy.

The US has floated proposals that would broadly freeze the conflict, leaving most Russian-occupied territory in Moscow’s hands. The Trump administration is also prepared to recognize the Ukrainian region of Crimea that Putin annexed in 2014 as Russian, Bloomberg reported in April.