WASHINGTON: Russ­ian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump agreed on Tuesday to seek a limited 30-day ceasefire against energy and infrastructure targets in Ukraine, while talks aimed at advancing towards a broader peace plan will begin “immediately,” the White House said.

Putin stopped short of accepting a broader US-backed 30-day ceasefire that Ukraine has said it is ready to accept. The Russian president raised “significant points” about preventing such a truce from being used by Ukraine to mobilise more soldiers and rearm itself, the Kremlin said in a statement following a lengthy phone call between the two leaders.

Putin also emphasised that the “complete cessation of foreign military assistance and the provision of intelligence information to Kyiv” is a condition for any permanent peace deal.

In a statement, the White House said negotiations on a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea, as well as other potential areas of concern, would commence immediately in the Middle East.

White House says talks will start immediately to push for a broader peace plan

“The leaders agreed that the movement to peace will begin with an energy and infrastructure ceasefire, as well as technical negotiations on implementation of a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea, full ceasefire and permanent peace,” the White House readout said.

Trump had been pressuring Putin to agree to a 30-day ceasefire that he hopes would move one step closer to ending Europe’s biggest conflict since World War Two. The war has killed or wounded hundreds of thousands of people, displaced millions and reduced entire towns to rubble.

Trump has hinted that a permanent peace deal could include territorial concessions by Kyiv and control of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

The US president’s overtures to Putin since returning to the White House in January have left traditional US allies wary.

Ukraine and its Western allies have long described Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as an imperialist land grab, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Putin of deliberately prolonging the war.

Zelensky, who arrived in Finland on Tuesday to discuss the Nato states’ support for Ukraine, says Ukraine’s sovereignty is not negotiable and Russia must surrender the territory it has seized. He says Moscow’s ambitions will not stop at Ukraine if it is allowed to keep the territory it has seized.

Published in Dawn, March 19th, 2025