Trump, Putin to hold talks on Russia-Ukraine ceasefire, Moscow sets tough condition

Russia-Ukraine Ceasefire:  The US has called for a 30-day ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, to which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has agreed. Moscow also accepted the proposal "in principle", but Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded some concrete guarantees before signing the ceasefire agreement.

US President Donald Trump

A major demand in Putin's conditions is that Ukraine will not be made a member of NATO and Kiev will remain a neutral country. US President Donald Trump has said that he will talk to Putin on Tuesday to discuss ending the war and ceasefire. Trump said that he sees a good opportunity to end this war. He believes that talks with Putin on this issue can yield some positive results. 

What condition has Putin placed?

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said Russia wants security guarantees for this ceasefire, which he referred to as an "Ironclad guarantee." According to him, part of these guarantees would be that Ukraine would not become a NATO member and a concrete agreement would be reached to prevent NATO countries from deploying any military forces on Ukrainian territory. Last week, Putin responded to US peace proposals by saying that he supports ending the conflict on the path of peace, but that this requires negotiations on many fundamental issues. He also said that he needs to talk to US allies. 

What has happened so far regarding the ceasefire?

On 14 March, US President Trump said he had a productive discussion with Putin and hoped the war between Russia and Ukraine could end soon. Putin also sent a message through Trump in which he hoped for a ceasefire, although he also placed conditions on it. Ukrainian President Zelensky expressed hope for an early end to the war, but accused Putin of imposing conditions to delay the process. He said Putin cannot directly tell Trump that he wants to continue the war, so he is attaching conditions to the ceasefire, which will either cause it to fail or drag on for too long.