By Fox News-Landon Mion -May 11, 2025 5:55am EDT

'It is a positive sign that the Russians have finally begun to consider ending the war,' Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said

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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday proposed direct talks with Ukrainian officials to finally bring an end to the war that began with a 2022 invasion by Moscow.

Putin has thus far offered few, if any, concessions but is now proposing talks with Ukraine in the Turkish city of Istanbul that he says must be held without preconditions and with the goal of lasting peace.

"We are proposing that Kyiv resume direct negotiations without any preconditions," Putin said in a televised statement on Sunday. "We offer the Kyiv authorities to resume negotiations already on Thursday, in Istanbul."

The Kremlin chief said talks should address the root causes of the war and that he would speak to Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan later on Sunday about facilitating the negotiations, which he said could result in a ceasefire.

Russian President Vladimir Putin gives a statement to the media at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, May 11, 2025. (Reuters)

"Our proposal, as they say, is on the table," Putin said. "The decision is now up to the Ukrainian authorities and their curators, who are guided, it seems, by their personal political ambitions, and not by the interests of their peoples."

The proposal was a welcome sign to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who said Kyiv was willing to negotiate but that Moscow must agree to a ceasefire.

"It is a positive sign that the Russians have finally begun to consider ending the war," he wrote on X. "The entire world has been waiting for this for a very long time. And the very first step in truly ending any war is a ceasefire. There is no point in continuing the killing even for a single day. We expect Russia to confirm a ceasefire – full, lasting, and reliable – starting tomorrow, May 12th, and Ukraine is ready to meet."

U.S. President Donald Trump said hundreds of thousands of lives will be saved if the "bloodbath" of the war could end.

"A potentially great day for Russia and Ukraine!" Trump wrote on Truth Social. "Think of the hundreds of thousands of lives that will be saved as this never ending 'bloodbath' hopefully comes to an end. It will be a whole new, and much better, WORLD. I will continue to work with both sides to make sure that it happens. The USA wants to focus, instead, on Rebuilding and Trade. A BIG week upcoming!"

Putin's proposal for direct talks came hours after European leaders demanded on Saturday in Kyiv that the Russian president agree to an unconditional 30-day ceasefire or face new sanctions. But Putin dismissed attempts by some European powers to issue what he described as "ultimatums."

The Russian leader said he does not rule out that Moscow and Kyiv will agree on "some new truces, a new ceasefire" during negotiations in Turkey, saying that the talks would be the first step towards a "sustainable" peace.

Russian President Vladimir Putin gives a statement to the media at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, May 11, 2025. (Reuters)

Russia had proposed several ceasefires, including a moratorium on striking energy facilities, an Easter ceasefire and most recently the 72-hour truce during the celebrations marking 80 years since victory in World War Two, Putin said.

Putin said that during the ceasefire in May, Ukraine attacked Russia with 524 aerial drones, 45 sea drones, and several Western missiles. But Ukraine accused Russia of violating the temporary truces, including the May 8-10 ceasefire.

Despite Putin's offer of peace talks, Russia launched a drone attack on Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine on Sunday, injuring one person and damaging several private homes, Ukrainian officials said.

Putin has maintained his conditions for ending the war despite pressure from Trump and warnings from European leaders.

In June, he said Ukraine must officially drop its hopes of joining NATO and pull its troops from the entirety of the territory of four Ukrainian regions claimed by Russia. Moscow has also urged the U.S. to recognize Russia's control over parts of Ukraine.

But Russian officials have said they are not against Kyiv's ambitions to join the European Union.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Putin mentioned the 2022 draft deal Russia and Ukraine negotiated shortly after the Russian invasion started.

Under that draft, Ukraine should agree to permanent neutrality in exchange for international security guarantees from the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council: Britain, China, France, Russia and the U.S.

"It was not Russia that broke off negotiations in 2022. It was Kyiv," Putin said. "Russia is ready to negotiate without any preconditions."

Putin thanked China, Brazil, African and Middle Eastern countries and the U.S. for their efforts to mediate.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Fox News-Landon Mion

THE GUARDIAN

Ukraine ready to meet Russia but only if ceasefire agreed, says Zelenskyy

Ukrainian president open to direct talks after Putin suggests negotiations in Turkey on Thursday

By Guardian-Shaun Walker - Sun 11 May 2025 10.48 BST

Ukraine is open to direct talks with Russia later this week but only if Moscow signs up to an unconditional ceasefire first, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said, responding to Vladimir Putin’s overnight suggestion of negotiations in Turkey.

“There is no point in continuing the killing even for a single day. We expect Russia to confirm a ceasefire – full, lasting and reliable – starting tomorrow, May 12, and Ukraine is ready to meet,” Ukraine’s president said in a post on X on Sunday morning.

His chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, was clearer in a Telegram post, in response to Putin’s suggestion that Ukrainian and Russian delegations should meet this Thursday in Istanbul: “First a 30-day ceasefire, then everything else.”

The demand for a 30-day ceasefire was set out on Saturday during a four-way visit to Kyiv by the leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Poland, who together with Zelenskyy made a phone call to the US president, Donald Trump, before holding a joint press conference.

If Putin rejected the offer, said the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, “we will respond, working with President Trump, with all our partners, we will ramp up sanctions, and increase our military aid for Ukraine’s defence to pressure Russia back to the table”.

The Russian president’s response to the ultimatum came in the unusual form of a statement read out to journalists in a ceremonial Kremlin room close to 2am local time (midnight BST). He accused Ukraine of breaking previous ceasefires, but said that “despite this” he was suggesting the two parties meet for talks, which he said could take place in Istanbul this Thursday. “We are ready for serious talks with Ukraine, and we want to solve the root causes of the conflict,” said Putin.

His tone appeared carefully calibrated to reject Europe’s demands but also make Moscow appear to be playing constructively in the eyes of the Trump administration, which has tended to be much softer on Moscow than on Kyiv until recent days. Putin made a point of thanking the new administration for its efforts to solve the conflict.

Trump’s initial response, posted on the Truth Social network a few hours later, suggested this tactic may have worked. The US president wrote: “A potentially great day for Russia and Ukraine! Think of the hundreds of thousands of lives that will be saved as this never ending ‘bloodbath’ hopefully comes to an end. It will be a whole new, and much better, WORLD.”

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, however, took a different line, writing on X on Sunday morning that no talks would be possible until Putin agreed to the ceasefire.

“President Zelensky committed without setting any condition. We now expect an equally clear response from Russia. There can be no negotiations while weapons are speaking. There can be no dialogue if, at the same time, civilians are being bombed,” he wrote.

The flurry of back-and-forth offers and ultimatums suggests fast-moving diplomacy around the conflict, but behind the rhetoric it is not clear how much of the fundamental positions of the two sides have changed.

Ukraine and its European allies are demanding a full ceasefire, after which negotiations would then start on a comprehensive settlement including a European “reassurance force” inside Ukraine.

Putin, on the other hand, has little interest in an unconditional ceasefire, and instead wants to keep fighting to increase the pressure on Ukraine to sign up to a number of Moscow’s core demands, which have changed little since the start of the war. As well as territorial claims to the regions it occupies, Moscow is expected to demand guarantees over Ukraine’s future political and military decisions. The Kremlin has already made it clear it would not accept western troops stationed in Ukraine.

Much of what happens now may depend on what position Trump takes, and whether the European leaders who visited Kyiv on Saturday are able to persuade him of their view that direct negotiations while fighting is continuing are unlikely to be advantageous to Ukraine.

In the hours after Putin’s address, Russia launched more than 100 drones at Ukraine, as a three-day ceasefire unilaterally declared by Putin came to an end.

The ceasefire was pegged to the 80th anniversary of victory in the second world war, for which Putin presided over a military parade in Moscow on Friday with guests that included the leaders of China and Brazil. Kyiv rejected that ceasefire, saying it was a cynical attempt to avoid attacks on Russia during the set-piece parade, while Moscow continues to reject calls for a longer-term ceasefire.