Russian President Vladimir Putin said that U.S. President Donald Trump’s peace proposals could help end the five-year war in Ukraine if Kyiv were ready to compromise, while continuing to talk tough over his army’s advances.
Putin made his comments to journalists in St. Petersburg on Thursday, on the sidelines of Russia’s annual showcase economic forum, sometimes dubbed the “Russian Davos.”
Putin said he emphasized to Trump last year that he was ready to end the war through diplomacy and by honoring unspecified compromises.
‘A Natural Conclusion’
“We are certainly prepared and willing to reach an agreement with Ukraine through peaceful means. Specifically, on the basis we discussed during our meeting with President Trump in Anchorage,” he said, referring to a summit between the United States and Russia in Alaska in August 2025.
“Russia agrees to those compromises we discussed in Anchorage. The Ukrainian side must also agree to these compromises. Then the conflict will quickly come to a natural conclusion.
“As for what we might say to one another if we were to reach the end of the conflict, at the very least we could—and indeed should—say, ‘Thank goodness it’s all over.'”
In Washington on Thursday, Trump declined to answer reporters’ questions about the nature of the compromises discussed in Alaska, but said, “I suggested those compromises.”
Trump said it “would be great” if Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy were to meet. As far as public records show, the pair have only met in person on one occasion, in 2019 in Paris, three years before Moscow launched an invasion of Ukraine.
“I’m glad that they’re maybe talking about meeting, I think that we had a lot to do with it,” Trump said.
‘Offensive Ongoing Daily’
Putin said his troops were advancing on the battlefield every day in what has become Europe’s deadliest land conflict since World War II, and that Russia held the advantage in both resources and willpower.
He conceded that Moscow had to improve its air defenses to contend with a growing threat from Ukrainian drones, but said the Russian army had “recently” pushed Ukrainian forces out of just over 1,550 miles (about 2,500 km) of territory.
“The offensive is ongoing on a daily basis. At present, the Russian Federation has taken full control of the Luhansk People’s Republic—one hundred percent,” he said.
Putin said that Russia has now brought more than 80 percent of the disputed territories, including the city of Donetsk, under its control.
“Naturally, under these circumstances, the Ukrainian side would like us to halt the advance. But rather than stopping that, it would be better to bring the war to an end altogether by agreeing to the compromises that were discussed in Anchorage,” Putin said.
Moscow is demanding that Ukraine surrender the rest of its eastern Donbas region, which includes two of the four disputed regions in their entirety.
Zelenskyy has said this would leave the remains of Ukraine dangerously vulnerable to further Russian attacks and impact hundreds of thousands of people living in the region.
Putin said he understands that Trump’s attention is focused on the Iran war for now, and suggested the European Union could use its influence to convince Kyiv to compromise its stance.
War ‘Without a Real Cause’
His remarks came on the same day that Zelenskyy published an open letter proposing the two leaders meet to try to thrash out a peace deal. The Russian president was aware of the letter, his spokesman confirmed, but had not yet digested its contents.
Zelenskyy said the onus was on Putin to end the war, adding that he believed Russians were ready for peace, having tired of Ukrainian missile and drone attacks, inflation, and fuel shortages.
The Ukrainian leader said he believed Putin’s own future could be on the line unless he made the right call.
“You have spent nearly half of your 26 years in power in Russia waging war against Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said, addressing Putin.
“Whatever you may say about NATO, geopolitics, or the Russian language, this war is your personal choice—a war without a real cause. That is how history will remember it.”
When asked about his own political future, Putin, who has been in power as either president or prime minister since 1999, said his health was in God’s hands.
The Russian constitution allows him to run again in 2030 and serve another term until 2036 if he wins, but Putin said it was too early to think about that.
“The country faces a lot of large-scale and pressing issues,” he said. “They need to be solved without thinking about it, but thinking about the future of Russia.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was likely that Putin would comment on Zelenskyy’s letter during a plenary session in St. Petersburg, where he was due to speak on Friday afternoon.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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