The Washington Post Here’s what Russia has demanded to end its war in Ukraine The Trump administration is pushing Russia to agree to a Ukraine ceasefire and peace talks. Here is what Moscow has said it wants. March 13, 2025 at 3:29 p.m. EDTYesterday at 3:29 p.m

 The  Washington Post

Here’s what Russia has demanded to end its war in Ukraine

The Trump administration is pushing Russia to agree to a Ukraine ceasefire and peace talks. Here is what Moscow has said it wants.

March 13, 2025 at 3:29 p.m. EDTYesterday at 3:29 p.m. EDT

6 min

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a news conference following a meeting with his Belarusian counterpart, Alexander Lukashenko, in Moscow on Thursday. (Maxim Shemetov/Pool/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)

By Mary Ilyushina and Sammy Westfall

More than three years into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has maintained inflexible, maximalist conditions for any potential agreement that would end the war.

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Putin said Thursday he supports in principle the idea of a 30-day ceasefire — proposed by the United States and to which Ukraine has agreed — but noted that its implementation raises many questions, particularly regarding verification across a long front line. Such a tactic could allow Russia to engage in protracted negotiations without immediately rejecting an offer.

Putin also said the 30-day reprieve could be used by Ukraine to regroup and rearm, hinting that he would seek to impose his own conditions on the framework of the pause, such as a halt to Western weapons supplies or a ban on mobilization.

But Moscow’s demands remain far from what Ukraine or its allies would be likely to accept.

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Here is what Russia has said about the conditions it would need to reach a peace deal.

Territory

A roadblock in the Kherson, Ukraine, in November 2023. (Ed Ram/For The Washington Post)

Three years into the war, Russia controls about one-fifth of Ukraine. It wants to keep that and then some. The Kremlin has ruled out ceding any of the land it has seized.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Thursday said “Crimea, Sevastopol, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Luhansk — these are regions of Russia. They are written into the constitution. This is a given fact.”

Russia annexed Crimea, including Sevastopol, in 2014, although it remains internationally recognized as part of Ukraine. It illegally annexed the other regions Peskov mentioned in 2022.

In June, Putin said Russia would immediately stop hostilities if Ukraine surrendered four southeastern regions that Russian troops partly occupied, and renounce plans to join NATO. Putin also wants Russia’s land grab to be recognized as legitimate.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky long emphasized that Ukraine would not surrender sovereign territory but has more recently moved to an emphasis on security guarantees rather than the immediate return of territory.

Russia’s terms also include demilitarizing Ukraine, which would leave the country with a small army incapable of deterring future attacks.

NATO peacekeepers

To justify his aggression in Ukraine, Putin cited the possibility of further expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Ukraine membership in NATO, a defense alliance that requires member states to defend fellow members if they are attacked, is a nonstarter for Putin.

Zelensky, however, sees Ukraine’s eventual membership in the security alliance as a key security guarantee. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said last month that NATO membership was not a “realistic outcome,” and in later remarks, without ruling out the possibility entirely, said membership was not likely, in recognition of “hard-power realities on the ground.”

NATO is larger than it was before the war began — Sweden and Finland were spurred to join. But the U.S. commitment to the alliance has come into increasing question under Trump.

In his 2024 state of the nation address, Putin warned of “tragic consequences” if NATO forces were ever deployed to Ukraine. He also threatened retaliatory attacks against the West if it were to attack Russia. “All this really threatens a conflict with the use of nuclear weapons and the destruction of civilization,” he said. “Don’t they get that?”

During the war, Russia has framed itself as fighting an existential battle against the “collective West,” because of NATO’s support for Kyiv in its fight against Russia.

The Kremlin has also ruled out the presence of foreign peacekeepers in Ukraine — a proposal European nations have considered as a possible security guarantee.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Thursday said Russia would not accept “involvement in the conflict” of other countries, which would prompt “Moscow to react with all means.”

European countries, including Britain and France, have suggested sending thousands of troops to Ukraine after fighting ends. Earlier this week, Russia reiterated that it would not accept peacekeeping troops from any NATO country on Ukrainian territory “under any conditions,” rejecting a proposal floated by French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

“Why should we give consent to a peacekeeping force … if they want a force composed of countries that have declared us an enemy, and they would come as peacekeepers?” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov asked in an interview Wednesday with pro-Kremlin U.S. bloggers.

Diplomatic missions

A view of the Russian Consulate in San Francisco in 2017. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Russia has used renewed contacts with the United States to address issues beyond the war in Ukraine, including long-standing grievances over frozen diplomatic compounds dating to the Obama administration.

Talks between Russia and the United States in Istanbul on Feb. 27 revolved around the status of each side’s diplomatic missions, whose operations have been significantly reduced by rounds of expulsions and staffing restrictions.

Russia demanded the return of six diplomatic compounds that it said had been seized illegally by the United States between 2016 and 2018, referring to buildings in New York and Maryland, frozen by the second Obama administration, and consulates in Seattle and San Francisco the first Trump administration shut down because of their proximity to sensitive sites, including Silicon Valley, a submarine base and Boeing facilities.

Washington raised concerns regarding access to banking and contracted services as well as the need to ensure stable and sustainable staffing levels at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. The State Department said that “through constructive discussions, both sides identified concrete initial steps to stabilize bilateral mission operations in these areas.”

Shortly after the meeting, Moscow announced that it had received credentials from Washington to appoint a new ambassador, Alexander Darchiev.

Sanctions relief

U.S. sanctions imposed by the Biden administration after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 have weakened the Russian economy and hindered its military sector. Trump has signaled a willingness to discuss easing sanctions as part of a potential peace deal.

Publicly, the Kremlin maintains that all sanctions are illegal and must be lifted. Privately, however, Moscow, would welcome any relief from U.S. sanctions, as it would undermine Western unity in enforcing economic restrictions, according to analysts.

Russia is particularly interested in lifting restrictions on transnational payments and the sale of gas and oil, especially recent curbs on its oil tanker fleet.

One of the most significant measures Russia faced was the freezing of over $300 billion in Russian central bank assets held in the West. The European Union last year adopted a plan to use the interest generated from these frozen assets to support Ukraine.

Last year, Putin condemned this strategy as “theft.” Paris has proposed using the assets as collateral, allowing them to be seized if Moscow were to violate a potential ceasefire agreement.

Russia pushed in talks in Istanbul in February for the resumption of direct flights to the United States, which would mark a significant easing of sanctions. The State Department did not mention this issue in its statement on the discussions.