Putin Suggests US Ceasefire Idea for Ukraine Needs Serious Reworking 

13 March 2025, Russia, Moscow: Russian President Vladimir Putin arrives to welcome President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko during an official visit to Russia. (Kremlin/dpa)
13 March 2025, Russia, Moscow: Russian President Vladimir Putin arrives to welcome President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko during an official visit to Russia. (Kremlin/dpa)
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Putin Suggests US Ceasefire Idea for Ukraine Needs Serious Reworking 

13 March 2025, Russia, Moscow: Russian President Vladimir Putin arrives to welcome President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko during an official visit to Russia. (Kremlin/dpa)
13 March 2025, Russia, Moscow: Russian President Vladimir Putin arrives to welcome President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko during an official visit to Russia. (Kremlin/dpa)

President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia supported a US proposal for a ceasefire in Ukraine in principle, but that fighting could not be paused until a number of crucial conditions were worked out or clarified.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has left hundreds of thousands of dead and injured, displaced millions of people, reduced towns to rubble and triggered the sharpest confrontation for decades between Moscow and the West.

Putin's heavily qualified support for the US ceasefire proposal looked designed to signal goodwill to Washington and open the door to further talks with US President Donald Trump.

But Putin said any agreement must address what Moscow sees as the root causes of the conflict, a major caveat that suggests any ceasefire will take longer than Trump wants.

"We agree with the proposals to cease hostilities," Putin told reporters at the Kremlin. "The idea itself is correct, and we certainly support it."

"But we proceed from the fact that this cessation should be such that it would lead to long-term peace and would eliminate the original causes of this crisis."

Putin has said he wants Ukraine to drop its ambitions to join NATO, Russia to control the entirety of the four Ukrainian regions it has claimed as its own, and the size of the Ukrainian army to be limited.

He has also made clear he wants Western sanctions eased and a presidential election to be held in Ukraine, which Kyiv says is premature while martial law is in force.

Putin listed ceasefire-related issues that he said now needed clarifying and thanked Trump, who says he wants to be remembered as a peacemaker, for his efforts to end the war. Both Moscow and Washington now cast the conflict as a deadly proxy war with the potential to trigger World War Three.

Trump, who said he was willing to talk to Putin by phone, called the statement "very promising" and said he hoped Moscow would "do the right thing".

Trump said Steve Witkoff, his special envoy, had held talks on Thursday with the Russians in Moscow on the US proposal, which Kyiv has already agreed to.

The US president said those discussions would show if Moscow was ready to make a deal.

"Now we're going to see whether or not Russia is there, and if they're not, it'll be a very disappointing moment for the world," he said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he thought Putin was preparing to reject the proposal but was afraid to tell Trump.

"That's why in Moscow they are imposing upon the idea of a ceasefire these conditions - so that nothing happens at all, or so that it cannot happen for as long as possible," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

TERRITORIAL QUESTIONS

The West and Ukraine describe Russia's 2022 invasion as an imperial-style land grab, and have repeatedly vowed to defeat Russian forces, which control nearly a fifth of Ukraine's territory and have been edging forward since mid-2024.

Putin portrays the conflict as part of an existential battle with a declining and decadent West, which he says humiliated Russia after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 by enlarging the NATO military alliance and encroaching on what he considers Moscow's sphere of influence, including Ukraine.

European powers have been deeply concerned that Trump could be turning his back on Europe for some sort of grand bargain with Putin that could include China, oil prices, cooperation in the Middle East and Ukraine.

Putin said the ceasefire would have to ensure that Ukraine did not simply use it to regroup.

"How can we and how will we be guaranteed that nothing like this will happen? How will control (of the ceasefire) be organized?" Putin said. "These are all serious questions."

"There are issues that we need to discuss. And I think we need to talk to our American colleagues as well."

Putin said he might call Trump to discuss the issue.

Trump said his administration has been discussing what land Ukraine would keep or lose under any settlement, as well as the future of a large power plant.

He was most likely referring to the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia facility in Ukraine, Europe's largest nuclear plant. The two sides have accused each other of risking an accident at the plant with their actions.

Any delay in agreeing a ceasefire could give Russia more time to push the last Ukrainian forces out of its western Kursk region.

Russia in recent days has pressed a lightning offensive in Kursk against Ukrainian forces, which entered last August in a bid to divert forces from eastern Ukraine, gain a bargaining chip and embarrass Putin.

The Russian leader wondered how a ceasefire would affect the situation in Kursk.

"If we stop hostilities for 30 days, what does that mean? That everyone who is there will leave without a fight?" he said.



Netanyahu’s Move to Fire Security Agency Chief Threatens New Crisis in Israel

Ronen Bar, new chief of the Israel Security Agency (also known as Shabak or Shin Bet), enters a vehicle at an undisclosed location in central Israel on October 11, 2021. (AFP)
Ronen Bar, new chief of the Israel Security Agency (also known as Shabak or Shin Bet), enters a vehicle at an undisclosed location in central Israel on October 11, 2021. (AFP)
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Netanyahu’s Move to Fire Security Agency Chief Threatens New Crisis in Israel

Ronen Bar, new chief of the Israel Security Agency (also known as Shabak or Shin Bet), enters a vehicle at an undisclosed location in central Israel on October 11, 2021. (AFP)
Ronen Bar, new chief of the Israel Security Agency (also known as Shabak or Shin Bet), enters a vehicle at an undisclosed location in central Israel on October 11, 2021. (AFP)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's bid to dismiss a top security official has threatened to plunge Israel back into deep political crisis, with opponents on Monday organizing protests and a former court president warning against the "dangerous" move.

Netanyahu on Sunday cited an "ongoing lack of trust" as the reason for moving to sack Ronen Bar, head of the Shin Bet internal security agency, following a similar bid by the government to oust the attorney general.

Bar, who has been engaged in a public spat with Netanyahu in recent weeks over reforms to the agency, suggested there were political motives behind the premier's decision to ask the government to dismiss him.

Attorney General Gali Baharav Miara -- the executive's top legal adviser who has often taken positions that clashed with those of Netanyahu's government -- said the move was "unprecedented" and its legality needed to be assessed.

Bar said it stemmed from his own refusal to meet Netanyahu's demands for "personal loyalty".

The agency led by Bar has been accused of failing to prevent the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack that triggered war in the Gaza Strip.

Several opposition parties have already announced they will jointly petition the High Court against Bar's dismissal, and the attorney general said in a letter to Netanyahu that he could not initiate the process "until the factual and legal foundation of your decision is fully clarified".

Baharav Miara is herself under threat of a no-confidence motion submitted by Justice Minister Yariv Levin, who has spearheaded efforts to reform the judiciary and curb the court's powers -- a plan that sparked major protests before coming to an abrupt halt with Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack.

Levin has accused Baharav Miara, a fierce defendant of the judiciary's independence, of "inappropriate conduct" and cited "significant and prolonged disagreements between the government and the attorney general".

The proceeding against the two figures promise to be lengthy, risking a repeat of the 2023 protest movement that was one of the most significant in Israel's history and had deeply fractured the country.

- 'Blow to national security' -

The Kaplan Force, a liberal umbrella organization which led the fight against the judicial reform, on Monday announced rallies in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv this week to protest the dismissal of the Shin Bet head.

The move to sack Bar, who has been involved in negotiations over the fragile ceasefire in Gaza, comes at a crucial time for the talks.

The truce has largely held since January 19 despite an impasse in efforts to extend it.

Since the Gaza war began, Netanyahu has dismissed his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, while several senior military officials have resigned including army chief Herzi Halevi.

Benny Gantz, an opposition figure who once served as defense minister under Netanyahu, said on X that "the dismissal of the head of the Shin Bet is a direct blow to national security and a dismantling of unity within Israeli society, driven by political and personal considerations."

Former Supreme Court president Dorit Beinisch told Kan public radio that Netanyahu was leading "processes that are dangerous for society".

"We need to wake up, and to wake up in time," she said.

- 'Power-grab' -

For Netanyahu's allies, the move against Bar falls within the normal rights of the head of government.

"In what normal country is a special reason even needed to remove the head of an intelligence organization who is personally responsible for a massive intelligence failure that led to the greatest disaster in the history of Israel?" far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich wrote on Telegram.

Nahum Barnea, columnist for the daily Yedioth Ahronoth, warned of the dangers stemming from the clash between Netanyahu and Bar.

"A prime minister who has lost his brakes will rule as he sees fit, and his failed government will follow in his wake," he wrote.

"It is gradually inching us closer to a form of civil war... in which there is no trust and a refusal to obey in security organizations".

For Amir Tibon, writing for the left-wing daily Haaretz, "Israeli democracy is now in grave danger".

"It's up to Israelis to decide if they'll accept Netanyahu's hostile power-grab -- and how far they will go to stop it".