Russian President Vladimir Putin has categorically rejected Russian participation in any meaningful negotiations on a ceasefire agreement. Instead, it asked for an "irreversible" "demilitarization" of Ukraine as a precondition for any ceasefire agreement. In this way, Putin openly demands that Ukraine surrender.
He commented on the prospects for an agreed ceasefire in Ukraine at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Astana, Kazakhstan, on July 4. But instead of offering his typical feigned interest in such negotiations, he flatly rejected any ceasefire negotiation process.
Putin has repeatedly presented the West as his negotiating partner to push him to make concessions on Ukrainian sovereignty, but has now rejected all mediating countries as possible brokers for a deal between Ukraine and Russia.
This is stated in the daily analysis of the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
Putin also rejected the Verkhovna Rada, despite previously claiming that the body was the only legitimate Ukrainian entity with which Russia could negotiate.
Putin has now labeled all Ukrainian governing institutions as illegitimate or unsuitable for negotiations and rejected the idea of third parties participating in the negotiations.
All this indicates confidence that Russia can pursue victory by continuing its creeping progress in Ukraine, continued Western support for Ukraine and winning a war of attrition against Ukrainian forces.
Officers from Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) reportedly detained the commander of Russia's 83rd Guards Airborne Assault (Airborne) Brigade, Col. Artyom Gorodilov, on fraud charges on July 3 following reports of heavy losses to the brigade in the direction of Kharkiv in June 2024.
The Kremlin-linked business publication "Kommersant" stated that FSB military counterintelligence officers detained Gorodilov in the Ryazan region on charges of particularly large-scale fraud and transported Gorodilov to the headquarters of the Russian Investigative Committee in Moscow.
Russian media reports that Gorodilov denies the charge and says he will seek an acquittal in the future, and Russia's 235th Garrison Military Court sent Gorodilov into pretrial detention.
Gorodilov reportedly served as commander of Russia's 234th Guards Regiment (76th Airborne Division) from 2019 until an unspecified recent date, and Russian media first introduced Gorodilov as commander of the 83rd Brigade in May 2024
The New York Times reported in December 2022 that elements of the 234th Airborne Division under Gorodilov carried out massacres of Ukrainian civilians in Bucha, Kyiv Oblast in March 2022.