Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the Kremlin is ready to negotiate with the United States about the war in Ukraine, but maintains its demands for the complete surrender of Ukraine, the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said in its analysis.
Putin called a meeting of the Russian Security Council on January 20, at which he and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov confirmed Russia's willingness to participate in peace talks with the new US presidential administration under President Donald Trump.
Putin indicated that any peace agreement must "eliminate the root causes" of the war in Ukraine. Lavrov identified these root causes on December 26 as an alleged violation of NATO’s obligations not to expand eastward and alleged discrimination by the Ukrainian government against ethnic Russians and the Russian language, media and culture in Ukraine.
Moscow has not changed its demands before sitting down for talks with Trump. The Kremlin refuses to consider any compromises with Putin’s demands from late 2021 and early 2022, which include that Ukraine remain permanently “neutral” and not join NATO, that Moscow impose strict limits on the size of the Ukrainian army and that it overthrow the current Ukrainian government. In practice, these demands amount to a complete capitulation by Kiev.
Putin himself said on December 26 that US President Joe Biden had offered him in 2021 Ukraine's NATO membership was postponed for 10 to 15 years, but this did not stop the Russian invasion of Ukraine a few months later - clearly showing that the alleged threats of NATO expansion did not actually lead Putin to start a full-scale war against Ukraine.