Ukraine presses for ceasefire as Russia reported to offer concession

By Olena Harmash and Yuliia Dysa

KYIV (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Tuesday said he was prepared to negotiate with Russia "in any format" once a ceasefire takes hold while the Financial Times reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered to halt Moscow's invasion at the current frontlines.

Putin on Monday suggested bilateral talks with Kyiv for the first time since early in the war which is more than three years old. The U.S. has been pressuring the two leaders to show concrete progress toward a peace deal. Washington has threatened to walk away from the effort without tangible results soon.

The White House said Steve Witkoff, U.S. President Donald Trump's special envoy, will meet again with Putin later this week in Russia.

Zelenskiy has not responded directly to Putin's proposal for bilateral talks but has repeatedly said achieving a ceasefire, especially on civilian targets, was top priority.

"We are ready to record that after a ceasefire, we are ready to sit down in any format so that there are no dead ends," Zelenskiy told reporters in the presidential office in Kyiv.

The Ukrainian president said his delegation would have a mandate to discuss a full or partial ceasefire at talks in London on Wednesday with Western countries.

Citing people familiar with the matter, the Financial Times reported that Putin offered at a meeting with Witkoff in St. Petersburg this month to halt Russia's invasion across the frontline and relinquish its claims to four Ukrainian regions.

The FT said the proposal was the first formal indication Putin has given since the war’s early months that Russia could step back from its maximalist demands. It cited European officials briefed on U.S. efforts as saying Russia's apparent concession could be a negotiating tactic.

The Washington Post reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the deliberations, that Washington has proposed recognizing Russia's annexation of Crimea and freezing the war's frontlines. The Crimean peninsula, which Russia seized in 2014, is not one of the four regions in Putin's offer reported by the FT.

Zelenskiy has long said Ukraine will not recognize Russia's claim in Crimea.

The U.S. presented the proposals to Kyiv at a meeting with Western countries in Paris last week, the Washington Post said.

Russia claimed to annex four provinces after its full-scale invasion in 2022: Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia.

The various reports suggested potential outlines of a U.S. proposal that could include a ceasefire along current frontlines, U.S. recognition of Russia's annexation of Crimea, Russia's relinquishing claims to the four Ukrainian provinces and an international force to monitor a ceasefire.

There are other complex issues such as the Kremlin's insistence that Ukraine become formally neutral and not join NATO as well as a deal that Kyiv is negotiating with Washington over sharing its mineral revenues with the U.S.

In a follow-up to the Paris meeting, Ukraine is participating in discussions in London with the U.S. and other Western countries on Wednesday.

In an apparent change of plan, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will not attend the talks in London, a State Department spokesperson said on Tuesday, adding that Washington's Ukraine envoy General Keith Kellogg would attend.

Trump and Rubio said last week that Washington could abandon its peace effort unless there was progress within days. Trump on Sunday said that "hopefully" there would be a deal "this week".

Separately, Zelenskiy said he would be happy to meet Trump when they attend the funeral of Pope Francis along with other world leaders this week.

(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Cynthia Osterman; Editing by David Gregorio)