President Vladimir V. Putin said on Friday that Russia would be ready to order a cease-fire in Ukraine and enter negotiations with its government if Kyiv withdrew troops from the four regions that Moscow has claimed as its own and dropped its aspirations to join NATO.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry quickly denounced Mr. Putin’s statement, saying that his goal was “to mislead the international community, undermine diplomatic efforts aimed at achieving a just peace and split the unity of the world over the goals and principles of the United Nations Charter.”
Mr. Putin’s new announcement stipulates that Ukraine effectively surrender huge swaths of its land to Moscow, including the capitals of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. They represent Mr. Putin’s most concrete set of territorial conditions to stop the war to date.
Until now, Mr. Putin has said that any negotiations should take into account “the realities of today,” a stance that some analysts interpreted as offering a cease-fire at the current battle lines.
Kyiv has said that Russia must withdraw its troops from all of Ukraine’s internationally recognized territory.
Mr. Putin made the remarks one day before a peace conference in Zurich that Ukraine has organized to persuade countries to sign onto its plans for the war and eventual peace. Russia was not invited to the summit, and Mr. Putin’s announcement appeared intended to get out ahead of the gathering.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry said Mr. Putin’s timing suggested that he was trying to undermine Ukraine’s diplomatic effort in Switzerland that begins Saturday, and showed that he is “afraid of a real peace.”
“Ukraine have never wanted this war but more than anyone in the world wants it to be over,” the ministry said.
With his announcement, Mr. Putin seemed to be sending a message to Ukraine, the West, and also nonaligned states in Asia, Africa and Latin America that have come to be called the Global South. Russia and the West have been competing for their sympathies amid increasing calls that neither side can achieve a full victory in Ukraine.
Speaking at a meeting with his top diplomats in Moscow, Mr. Putin described Russia’s demands as “very simple.” He said that Ukraine must withdraw its troops from its entire Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia regions, which he officially claimed as part of Russia in September 2022, even though Russia does not control all of the territory.
He also said that Ukraine must abandon its plans to join NATO and that the West must lift all sanctions imposed on Russia.
Under those conditions, he said, Russia would “immediately issue an order to cease fire and start negotiations.”
Mr. Putin said that with its offer, Russia was not talking about “freezing the conflict, but its final resolution.”
“Today we are making another concrete, real peace proposal,” the Russian leader said. “Our principled position is that Ukraine’s status must be a neutral, nonaligned, free of nuclear weapons,” he said.
Speaking about the upcoming peace conference in Switzerland, Mr. Putin said that without Russia “it would be impossible to reach a peaceful solution on Ukraine and overall on global European security.”
Anton Troianovski and Maria Varenikova contributed reporting.
