Putin says he's ready to end war though rejects concessions

Bloomberg News on Dec 19, 2025

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

President Vladimir Putin said he’s willing to discuss bringing Russia’s war in Ukraine to an end, even as he ruled out changes sought by Kyiv and Europe to a U.S. peace plan drawn up with Moscow.

Putin said he had “practically agreed” on proposals for ending the war set out at summit talks with U.S. President Donald Trump in Alaska in August.

“To say that we reject something is completely incorrect and has no basis in fact,” he said Friday at his annual televised news conference in Moscow. “The issue is entirely on the side of our Western opponents, so to speak, primarily the leaders” of Ukraine and Europe, he said.

Putin spoke after intense negotiations in recent weeks involving the U.S., Ukraine and Europe over a 28-point peace plan that emerged last month following discussions between Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Kremlin adviser Kirill Dmitriev.

The U.S.-Russia plan initially horrified Ukraine and its European allies by adopting a series of Kremlin demands that Kyiv had already flatly rejected. Some of the most contentious issues have been dropped or changed following interventions from Kyiv and Europe, and talks are continuing on the modified proposals amid rising optimism that they could form the basis of a peace deal.

Still, Putin hasn’t said if he’s willing to accept the plan in its current form. Ukrainian and Russian negotiators are expected to meet separately with U.S. officials for more talks in Florida at the weekend, including on plans for postwar security guarantees for Ukraine.

Trump is “making serious efforts to end this conflict,” Putin said. “We would also very much like to live in peace and without any military conflicts next year.”

Putin said later that Russia currently has 700,000 troops in Ukraine. Western allies of Ukraine calculate that more than 1.1 million Russian troops have been killed or wounded since the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022, including almost 400,000 so far this year.

The Russian leader is refusing to roll back maximalist demands for territory in eastern and southern Ukraine, including parts of regions that Moscow’s forces have failed to occupy in more than a decade of fighting since 2014. Putin’s order to invade Ukraine triggered Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II.

He has repeatedly rejected calls for a ceasefire to allow space for negotiations. Trump in October abandoned plans for a second summit in Budapest after the U.S. concluded that Russia wasn’t ready to move from its war aims.

European Union leaders agreed in a late-night deal to loan Ukraine €90 billion ($106 billion) for the next two years in a bid to strengthen Kyiv’s hand at the negotiating table and keep the war-torn country afloat. The loan will be funded from joint debt and backed by the bloc’s budget, a significant pivot from the bloc’s initial plan to use frozen Russian assets in Europe.

While it has defied predictions of collapse, Russia’s economy is straining under the impact of unprecedented sanctions imposed by the U.S. and its western allies in response to the invasion. It has depleted more than half of its rainy-day reserves as the budget deficit widens amid slowing growth and a slump in commodity revenues including from oil and gas.

Faced with a widening gap in the military budget, Russia’s government has resorted to increasingly costly borrowing to help fund the war. It has issued 7.9 trillion rubles ($98 billion) of debt known as OFZ so far this year, sharply surpassing the previous record set in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This is the third time that Putin has held his news conference since he began the invasion of Ukraine. The Kremlin canceled the event in late 2022 as Russia’s army suffered a series of reverses on the battlefield in Ukraine.

He began the tradition of a marathon annual news conference early in his 26-year rule. Over the years, it has evolved into an event carefully stage-managed by the Kremlin to show Putin responding to problems often raised by ordinary Russians frustrated at a lack of action by regional officials.

This year’s event concluded after four hours and 27 minutes, and Putin answered 77 questions, the state-run Tass news service reported.

Questions mostly focused on domestic issues ranging from levels of taxation and interest rates to housing problems, though Putin was asked at one point if he was in love.

“Yes,” he replied, smiling, without elaborating.