Russian President Vladimir Putin promised on Friday to "immediately" order a cease-fire in Ukraine and begin negotiations if Kyiv withdraws troops from the four regions annexed by Moscow in 2022 and renounces plans to join NATO.

Ukraine responded by calling Putin’s proposal “manipulative” and “absurd.”

Putin's remarks came as Switzerland prepared to host scores of world leaders this weekend, excluding Moscow, to discuss initial steps toward peace in Ukraine. These remarks coincided with a meeting of the Group of Seven (G7) leading industrialized nations in Italy, following a 10-year security agreement signed between the U.S. and Ukraine, which Russian officials, including Putin, denounced as “null and void.”

Putin criticized the Switzerland conference as “just another ploy to divert everyone’s attention, reverse the cause and effect of the Ukrainian crisis, and set the discussion on the wrong track.” His proposal, aimed at what he called a “final resolution” of the conflict rather than “freezing it,” emphasized that the Kremlin is

"Putin Proposes Cease-Fire and Negotiations if Ukraine Withdraws from Annexed Regions, But Kyiv Rejects Proposal"

Russian President Vladimir Putin promised on Friday to "immediately" order a cease-fire in Ukraine and begin negotiations if Kyiv withdraws troops from the four regions annexed by Moscow in 2022 and renounces plans to join NATO.

Ukraine responded by calling Putin’s proposal “manipulative” and “absurd.”

Putin's remarks came as Switzerland prepared to host scores of world leaders this weekend, excluding Moscow, to discuss initial steps toward peace in Ukraine. These remarks coincided with a meeting of the Group of Seven (G7) leading industrialized nations in Italy, following a 10-year security agreement signed between the U.S. and Ukraine, which Russian officials, including Putin, denounced as “null and void.”

Putin criticized the Switzerland conference as “just another ploy to divert everyone’s attention, reverse the cause and effect of the Ukrainian crisis, and set the discussion on the wrong track.” His proposal, aimed at what he called a “final resolution” of the conflict rather than “freezing it,” emphasized that the Kremlin is “ready to start negotiations without delay.”

Broader demands for peace that Putin listed included Ukraine’s recognition of Crimea as part of Russia, maintaining the country’s non-nuclear status, restricting its military force, and protecting the interests of the Russian-speaking population. He insisted that all these points should be part of “fundamental international agreements” and that all Western sanctions against Russia should be lifted.

“We’re urging to turn this tragic page of history and to begin restoring, step-by-step, the unity between Russia and Ukraine and in Europe in general,” Putin said.

Putin’s remarks, delivered to a group of somber Foreign Ministry officials, represented a rare occasion where he clearly outlined his conditions for ending the war in Ukraine, although they did not include any new demands. The Kremlin has previously stated that Kyiv should recognize its territorial gains and drop its bid to join NATO.

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry called Putin’s plan “manipulative,” “absurd,” and designed to “mislead the international community, undermine diplomatic efforts aimed at achieving a just peace, and split the unity of the world majority around the goals and principles of the U.N. Charter.”

Besides wanting to join NATO, Ukraine demands that Russia withdraw its troops from all its territory, including the Crimean Peninsula, which was illegally annexed in 2014, restore its territorial integrity, hold Russia accountable for war crimes, and pay reparations to Kyiv.

Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. After Ukrainian forces thwarted a Russian advance on the capital, much of the fighting has focused in the south and east, with Russia illegally annexing regions in these areas, though it does not fully control any of them.

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said on social media that there was nothing new in Putin’s proposal and that the Russian leader “voiced only the ‘standard aggressor’s set,’ which has been heard many times already.”

“There is no novelty in this, no real peace proposals and no desire to end the war. But there is a desire not to pay for this war and to continue it in new formats. It’s all a complete sham,” Podolyak wrote on X.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, speaking at NATO headquarters in Brussels, said Putin “has illegally occupied sovereign Ukrainian territory. He is not in any position to dictate to Ukraine what they must do to bring about a peace.” Austin added that Putin “started this war with no provocation. He could end it today if he chose to do that.”

Putin insisted on Friday that Kyiv should withdraw from all four annexed regions entirely and essentially cede them to Moscow within their administrative borders. In Zaporizhzhia in the southeast, Russia still does not control the region’s namesake administrative capital, and in the neighboring Kherson region, Moscow withdrew from Kherson’s biggest city and capital in November 2022.

Putin said that if “Kyiv and Western capitals” reject his offer, “it is their business, their political and moral responsibility for continuing the bloodshed.” Throughout the war, the Kremlin has repeatedly aired its readiness for peace talks with Kyiv and blamed the West for undermining its efforts to end the conflict.

Putin went further on Friday, claiming that his troops never intended to storm Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, even though they approached the city. “In essence, it was nothing other than an operation to force the Ukrainian regime to peace. The troops were there to push the Ukrainian side to negotiate, to try and find an acceptable solution,” he said.

Moscow withdrew from Kyiv in March 2022, describing it as a goodwill gesture amid peace talks. However, the pullback occurred amid fierce Ukrainian resistance that significantly slowed down Russia’s battlefield advances.

Putin also claimed that in the same month, he told a foreign official he wasn’t ruling out withdrawing forces from the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions and ceding occupied parts back to Ukraine, as long as Kyiv allowed Russia to have a “strong land connection” to Crimea.

He said the official planned on bringing that proposal to Kyiv, which Moscow “welcomed” as it generally welcomed “attempts to find a peaceful resolution of the conflict.” However, the Kremlin later annexed both regions, along with Donetsk and Luhansk, citing the results of sham “referendums” it staged there. Putin reiterated that “the matter is closed forever and is no longer up for discussion.”

Ukraine remains firm in its stance that any peace agreement must include the restoration of its territorial integrity, accountability for war crimes, and reparations from Russia. The international community continues to navigate these complex diplomatic efforts, with many viewing Putin’s proposal as a strategic move rather than a genuine attempt at peace.