Russia reacted cautiously to a proposed ceasefire agreement announced by Ukrainian and U.S. negotiators and held out the possibility of a phone call between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump in the coming days.
Speaking a day after the deal was announced, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on March 12 that Russian officials were waiting to hear more details from U.S. negotiators before commenting further.
The agreement, reached in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on March 11, specifically called for a 30-day ceasefire between Kyiv and Moscow, though it noted that this would be subject to Russia’s approval. It also stated that Washington had agreed to resume sharing intelligence with Ukrainian planners and shipments of weapons and equipment.
The U.S. suspension of weapons and intelligence sharing with Kyiv came after a contentious meeting at the White House on February 28, in which Trump and U.S. Vice President JD Vance berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“We’ll take this offer now to the Russians, and we hope that they’ll say yes, that they’ll say yes to peace,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters in Jeddah. “The ball is now in their court.”
Mike Waltz, the White House national security adviser, was scheduled to meet his Russian counterpart this week, and Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff also planned to travel to Moscow, possibly to meet Putin.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry made no comment, though a spokeswoman said talks with U.S. representatives were possible in the coming days.
Kremlin-linked commentators, meanwhile, portrayed the agreement as a positive outcome for Russia. Konstantin Kosachev, a lawmaker in Russia’s upper house of parliament, asserted that the results of the talks were strictly American and argued that they showed Zelenskyy’s weakness.
“Russia is advancing, and therefore it will be different with Russia,” he said in a Telegram post. “Any agreements (with all understanding of the need for compromise) will be on our terms, not American,” he added. “And this is not boasting, but an understanding that real agreements are still being written there, on the front line. Which Washington should also understand.”
“The most important thing is not to interfere with Russian-American negotiations with third-party comments. Let the negotiators work,” he wrote. “Victory will be ours.”
Sergei Markov, a former Kremlin adviser, said Russian officials might respond with a counteroffer: a suspension of Western weapons supplies to Kyiv for the same 30-day period, from both the United States and European allies.
“Europe must support the truce in Ukraine not with words, but with deeds — an embargo on arms supplies to the conflict zone is a well-known formula in diplomacy,” he said in a post to Telegram.
Though Washington is the biggest single supplier of weaponry to Ukraine, European allies collectively provide as many weapons and other equipment.
When will the World learn to spell UN.
Does it take a repeat of WW1, WW2 to realize that the world had one voice to avoid armed wars.
Those who argue that the UN is worthless will conclude, if they survive, that YES the UN was weak, virtually worthless…but it was the ONLY UNITED VOICE the World had to avoid these Wars.