U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he wants to end the deadliest European conflict since World War Two and has shown increasing frustration with Putin in recent days, warning on Tuesday the Russian leader was “playing with fire” by refusing to engage in ceasefire talks with Kyiv as his forces made gains on the battlefield.
Kyiv and European governments have accused Moscow of stalling while its troops advance in eastern Ukraine.
The three Russian sources said Putin wants a “written” pledge by major Western powers not to enlarge the U.S.-led NATO alliance eastwards - shorthand for formally ruling out membership to Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova and other former Soviet republics.
The first source said that, if Putin realizes he is unable to reach a peace deal on his own terms, he will seek to show the Ukrainians and the Europeans by military victories that “peace tomorrow will be even more painful”.
Kyiv has repeatedly said that Russia should not be granted veto power over its aspirations to join the NATO alliance. Ukraine says it needs the West to give it a strong security guarantee with teeth to deter any future Russian attack.
NATO has also in the past said that it will not change its “open door” policy just because Moscow demands it. A spokesperson for the 32-member alliance did not respond to Reuters’ questions.
Russia currently controls just under one fifth of the country. Though Russian advances have accelerated over the past year, the war is costing both Russia and Ukraine dearly in terms of casualties and military spending.
Trump, who prides himself on having friendly relations with Putin and has expressed his belief the Russian leader wants peace, has warned that Washington could impose further sanctions if Moscow delays efforts to find a settlement. Trump suggesting on social media on Sunday that Putin had “gone absolutely CRAZY” by unleashing a massive aerial attack on Ukraine last week.
A second source said that Putin was now less inclined to compromise on territory and was sticking to his public stance that he wanted the entirety of four regions in eastern Ukraine claimed by Russia.
NATO ENLARGEMENT
In June last year, Putin set out his opening terms for an immediate end to the war: Ukraine must drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw all of its troops from the entirety of the territory of four Ukrainian regions claimed and mostly controlled by Russia.
Former U.S. President Joe Biden, Western European leaders and Ukraine cast the invasion as an imperial-style land grab and have repeatedly vowed to defeat Russian forces.
At the 2008 Bucharest summit, NATO leaders agreed that Ukraine and Georgia would one day become members. Ukraine in 2019 amended its constitution committing to the path of full membership of NATO and the European Union.
Putin, who rose to the top Kremlin job in 1999, has repeatedly returned to the issue of NATO enlargement, including in his most detailed remarks about a possible peace in 2024.
Russia wants a pledge on NATO in writing because Putin thinks Moscow was misled by the United States after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall when U.S. Secretary of State James Baker assured Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 that NATO would not expand eastwards, two of the sources said.
NATO, founded in 1949 to provide security against the Soviet Union, says it poses no challenge to Russia - though its 2022 assessment of peace and security in the Euro-Atlantic area identified Russia as the most “significant and direct threat”.
Western European leaders have repeatedly said that if Russia wins the Ukraine war, it could one day attack NATO itself - a step that would trigger a world war. Russia dismisses such claims as baseless scaremongering, but has also warned the war in Ukraine could escalate into a broader conflict.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Putin, for Ukraine peace, wants a pledge to halt NATO enlargement, sources say )
Also on site :