'Russia ready to discuss temporary ceasefire with Ukraine'
Russia is ready to discuss a temporary ceasefire in Ukraine if progress is made toward a permanent peace deal, Bloomberg reported, citing people in Moscow familiar with the matter.
Agreeing to the ceasefire would require a clear agreement on the principles of the eventual peace deal, two people familiar with the matter said.
Russia would particularly push to spell out the parameters of any peacekeeping mission, including agreement on which countries would participate, another person familiar with the matter said. Russia has previously made it clear that it does not want NATO troops on Ukrainian soil.
The Kremlin has not yet officially commented on the news.
"The king is dead, long live the king!"
Re: War! The Russian Invasion of Ukraine.
[Re: CNote]
#1116692 03/08/2509:23 PM03/08/2509:23 PM
NATO chief praises Trump: 'You broke the deadlock' on Ukraine
Trump praised for getting NATO allies to bolster defense spending: 'really staggering' 'We will have a NATO which is really invigorated' By Diana Stancy Fox News Published March 13, 2025 4:56pm EDT | Updated March 13, 2025 5:15pm EDT
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte lauded President Donald Trump’s efforts to push NATO allies to increase defense spending, amid efforts to end the war in Ukraine.
Trump has long advocated for NATO allies to ramp up defense spending to between 2% and 5% gross domestic product — and has made it clear that European nations need to shoulder greater responsibility for the security of their continent.
"You're starting to hear the British prime minister and others all committing to much higher defense spending," Rutte told reporters Thursday at the White House. "We're not there. We need to do more, but I really want to work together with you . . . to make sure that we will have a NATO which is really reinvigorated, under your leadership. And we are getting there."
"When you look at Trump 47, what happened the last couple of weeks is really staggering," Rutte said.
‘MAKE NATO GREAT AGAIN’: HEGSETH PUSHES EUROPEAN ALLIES TO STEP UP DEFENSE EFFORTS
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte visited the White House on March 13, 2025.
Rutte’s comments come as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen put forth an $841 billion proposal on March 4 for European Union nations to bolster defense spending.
Likewise, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged in February to boost his country's defense spending to 2.5% of its gross domestic value. That is an increase from the 2.3% the U.K. currently spends, and amounts to a nearly $17 billion increase.
Still, Rutte emphasized the need to strengthen the defense industrial base in both the U.S. and Europe, and cautioned they were falling behind Russia and China in defense production.
As of 2023, the U.S. spent 3.3% of its GDP on defense spending — totaling $880 billion, according to the nonpartisan Washington, D.C.-based Peterson Institute for International Economics. More than 50% of NATO funding comes from the U.S., while other allies — like the United Kingdom, France and Germany — have contributed between 4% and 8% to NATO funding in recent years.
NATO comprises more than 30 countries and originally was formed in 1949 to halt the spread of the Soviet Union.
ecretary of Defense Pete Hegseth also encouraged NATO allies to beef up defense spending during a trip to Brussels in February.
"NATO should pursue these goals as well," Hegseth said. "NATO is a great alliance, the most successful defense alliance in history, but to endure for the future, our partners must do far more for Europe’s defense."
Pledges from European and allied nations to increase defense spending coincide with negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.
Nations including the U.K. and France have proposed deploying troops to ensure that Ukraine is protected from future Russian aggression under a peace negotiation.
Rutte is a very clever and loyal guy prime minister of the Netherlands from 2010 to 2024. We did have some major problems and many blame him but I blame the system more. To run the Netherlands for 14 years is not an easy job real leaders like Angela Merkel, Macron and even Trump know that DJT would love to rule the USA for 14 years haha..
"The king is dead, long live the king!"
Re: War! The Russian Invasion of Ukraine.
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#1117168 03/14/2504:44 PM03/14/2504:44 PM
A new deal with the Greens could allow for as much as €1 trillion in new spending for defense and infrastructure over the next decade.
Germany’s conservative Chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz has reached a breakthrough with the Greens on a massive spending plan to unleash hundreds of billions of euros for defense and infrastructure.
“Germany is back,” Merz told reporters in Berlin on Friday. “Germany is making its great contribution to the defense of freedom and peace in Europe.”
Separate peace talks, US-Russia confrontation in Riyadh: Trump wants truce by Easter Washington's goal is to achieve an immediate partial ceasefire in the war in Ukraine, followed by a comprehensive peace agreement
by Benedetta Guerrera
March 24, 2025
A symbolic date, April 20, when both Catholic and Orthodox Easter will fall. With this limit on the horizon to achieve peace in Ukraine, talks between Donald Trump's team and Volodymyr Zelensky's team took place in Saudi Arabia, ahead of the meeting between Washington and Moscow's representatives today. "The discussion was productive and focused: we addressed key points, including energy," reported Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, who heads the Kiev team, at the end of the meeting with the American delegation.
"President Volodymyr Zelensky's goal is to secure a just and lasting peace for our country and our people, and, by extension, for all of Europe. We are working to make this goal a reality."
The US president and his team, special envoy Steve Witkoff, have sounded optimistic about ending Europe's worst conflict since World War II, despite renewed mutual attacks on the ground, but have slammed British- and French-led efforts to shore up Ukraine's defenses and Europe's plan to build long-term security guarantees as "posturing." "Putin doesn't want to conquer all of Europe. The situation is very different today than it was in World War II," the tycoon's right-hand man for foreign policy said, arguing that the Kremlin leader is "not a bad person, he's very intelligent." "I have the impression that he wants peace," Witkoff told Fox News, saying he was confident that Monday's talks with Moscow would yield "concrete progress" such as "a first ceasefire in the Black Sea that will then lead to a full truce."
The Kremlin has scaled down American expectations for a quick resolution to the conflict, saying that negotiations with the United States "will be difficult." "We are only at the beginning of this path," spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, confirming however that Moscow's "main" focus will be on resuming an agreement to ensure safe navigation for commercial ships in the Black Sea, especially for grain, as has already been the case between 2022 and 2023.
Announcing the start of the Riyadh talks, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, who led the Kiev delegation, said on Facebook: "We are implementing our president's directive to move closer to a just peace and strengthen security." Zelensky, who in his usual evening speech called the ongoing talks in Riyadh with the Americans "useful," continued to push for "sanctions against Russian terrorists. New solutions and new pressure on Moscow are needed to stop these attacks and this war. We need to strengthen Ukraine and our army: more air defense and real assistance," the Ukrainian leader urged, commenting on Moscow's attacks over the past 48 hours. Ukrainian authorities reported that a Russian drone attack in Kiev overnight killed at least three people, including a 5-year-old boy, causing fires in buildings and damage throughout the capital. Meanwhile, Russian air defenses said their air defenses destroyed 59 Ukrainian drones targeting the country's southwestern regions, adding that the strikes killed one person in Rostov.
A situation of very high tension, far from the peace in the short term hoped for by Trump. The American president has, however, assured that efforts "to avoid a further escalation of the conflict are underway". "I have a good relationship with Putin and Zelensky and no one else, apart from me, is capable of stopping the war in Ukraine", reiterated the commander-in-chief who is already thinking of being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. "Obama got it for no reason, he didn't even know it, he didn't do anything. If I were a democratic president I would win it".
"The king is dead, long live the king!"
Re: War! The Russian Invasion of Ukraine.
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#1118252 5 hours ago5 hours ago
The United States said on Tuesday it has reached separate agreements with Ukraine and Russia to ensure safe navigation in the Black Sea and to implement a ban on attacks by the two countries on each other's energy facilities.
The agreements, if implemented, would represent the clearest progress yet towards a wider ceasefire that Washington sees a stepping stone towards peace talks to bring an end to Russia's three-year-old war in Ukraine.
