Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, a top ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said on Thursday that Russia is “ready to reach a deal” with President Donald Trump to end the war in Ukraine, noting, however, that there are still details to be “fine-tuned.”

Earlier this week, Trump told reporters, “Russia is ready” for peace as he is pushing both sides to agree to end the three-year conflict.

“I think we have a deal with Russia,” he said.

In an interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation” set to be broadcast in full on Sunday, Lavrov said Trump “believes, and I think rightly so, that we are moving in the right direction.”

He added, “The statement by the president mentions a deal, and we are ready to reach a deal, but there are still some specific points, elements of this deal which need to be fine-tuned, and we are busy with this exact process.”

Trump has signaled that he is prepared to hand Moscow big concessions as part of a potential peace plan, including possibly recognizing Crimea as a part of Russia, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has ruled out agreeing to.

Asked what Russia has offered so far to move the peace process along, Trump on Thursday replied, “Stopping the war. Stopping — taking the whole country.”

“Pretty big concession,” he added.

Earlier, Trump had issued a rare rebuke of Putin over Moscow’s attack on Kyiv, which left at least 12 people dead, in the largest assault on the Ukrainian capital since last summer.

“I am not happy with the Russian strikes on KYIV,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform. “Vladimir, STOP!”

Lavrov appeared to defend the attack, claiming the Russians “only target military goals or civilian sites used by the military.”

Moscow has since launched another drone attack in southeastern Ukraine, killing at least three people, according to local officials.

Trump envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin for the fourth time in Moscow Friday. Lavrov would not offer a direct answer as to whether a deal between Russia and the U.S. could be reached as early as this week.

Witkoff’s arrival comes as Russia said one of its generals was killed by a car bomb outside Moscow.

Meanwhile, both Trump and Zelenskyy are set to attend Pope Francis’ funeral in Rome this weekend. This will mark the first time the two leaders have seen each other in person since their tense Oval Office exchange in February. Still, it’s unclear if they will hold talks about the war on the sidelines of the event.

Putin will not be attending the funeral, his spokesperson has confirmed.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia on Sunday of creating a false appearance of honoring an Easter ceasefire, saying Moscow continued to launch attacks after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a unilateral temporary truce.

“As of Easter morning, we can say that the Russian army is trying to create a general impression of a ceasefire, but in some places, it does not abandon individual attempts to advance and inflict losses on Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said in a post on X.

Despite Putin’s declaration of an Easter ceasefire, Zelenskyy said Sunday morning that Ukrainian forces had recorded 59 instances of Russian shelling and five assaults by units along the front line, as well as dozens of drone strikes.

In later updates, Zelenskyy said that despite Ukraine declaring a symmetrical approach to Russian actions, “the trend of increasing the use of heavy weaponry by Russian forces continues.” He said, however, that it was “a good thing, at least, that there were no air raid sirens.”

He noted that some Ukrainian troops were killed in a Russian “ambush” on Sunday in the Donetsk region, and said the Russian soldiers responsible would be “eliminated.”

Russia’s Defense Ministry accused Ukrainian forces of overnight attacks in the Donetsk region despite the ceasefire. It said Ukraine had sent 48 drones into Russian territory. According to the ministry, there were “dead and wounded among the civilian population,” without giving details. It claimed Russian troops had strictly observed the truce.

Russia-installed officials in the partially occupied Ukrainian region of Kherson also said Ukrainian forces had launched attacks.

Zelenskyy said that Russia must fully adhere to the ceasefire conditions and reiterated Ukraine’s offer to extend the truce for 30 days when it ends midnight Sunday. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Moscow had not responded to Kyiv’s proposal.

“In practice, either Putin does not have full control over his army, or the situation proves that in Russia, they have no intention of making a genuine move toward ending the war, and are only interested in favorable PR coverage,” Zelenskyy wrote.

Just hours after announcing the ceasefire, Putin attended an Easter service late Saturday at Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour led by Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church and a vocal supporter of Putin and the war in Ukraine.

Putin offered no details on how the ceasefire would be monitored or whether it would cover airstrikes or ongoing ground battles that rage around the clock.

His announcement came after U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday that negotiations between Ukraine and Russia are “coming to a head” and insisted that neither side is “playing” him in his push to end the grinding three-year war.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine ___

Morton reported from London.

CHERNIHIV REGION, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine said it would reciprocate any genuine ceasefire by Moscow, but voiced skepticism after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a temporary Easter truce in Ukraine starting Saturday.

The announcement from Kyiv came as Russia and Ukraine conducted their largest prisoner exchange since Moscow’s full-scale invasion started over three years ago. Putin announced a temporary Easter ceasefire in Ukraine starting Saturday, citing humanitarian reasons. According to the Kremlin, the ceasefire will last from 6 p.m. Moscow time (1500 GMT) on Saturday to midnight (2100 GMT) following Easter Sunday.

Putin offered no details on how the ceasefire would be monitored or whether it would cover airstrikes or ongoing ground battles that rage around the clock.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said if Russia is genuinely ready to observe a full and unconditional ceasefire, Ukraine will mirror that approach and strike only in defense.

He said such a gesture, particularly over the Easter weekend, could reveal Moscow’s true intentions.

“If a full ceasefire truly takes hold, Ukraine proposes extending it beyond Easter Day on April 20,” Zelenskyy said on Telegram. “That will reveal Russia’s true intentions, as 30 hours are enough for headlines, but not for genuine confidence-building measures.”

Zelenskyy added that, according to military reports, Russian assaults and artillery fire continued along parts of the 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) long front line.

In response to the ceasefire announcement, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said that Kyiv had in March “agreed unconditionally to the U.S. proposal of a full interim ceasefire for 30 days,” which Russia rejected.

“Putin has now made statements about his alleged readiness for a ceasefire. 30 hours instead of 30 days,” Sybiha continued, writing on X. “Unfortunately, we have had a long history of his statements not matching his actions.”

Putin’s ceasefire announcement came after U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said negotiations between Ukraine and Russia are “coming to a head” and insisted that neither side is “playing” him in his push to end the grinding three-year war.

The two sides meanwhile exchanged hundreds of POWs on Saturday. Russia’s Ministry of Defense said that 246 Russian service members were returned from Ukraine, and 31 wounded Ukrainian POWs were transferred in exchange for 15 wounded Russian soldiers in need of urgent medical care.

Zelenskyy said that 277 Ukrainian “warriors” have returned home from Russian captivity.

Both sides thanked the United Arab Emirates for their mediation.

Most of the Ukrainians freed in the latest prisoner exchange are young people born after 2000, Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said Friday.

Outside a hospital in Ukraine’s Northern Chernihiv region, where recently freed POWs were brought after the exchange at the border, dozens of relatives stood waiting.

Among them was 48-year-old Nataliia Lohvynchuk, who rushed toward the bus the moment it arrived. She hadn’t seen her son in three years, since he was captured during the battle for Mariupol in the spring of 2022.

Her son, 23-year-old Ihor Lohvynchuk, lost about 40 kilograms (88 pounds) in captivity. “It still doesn’t feel real,” he said softly. “We’re not really here yet. We all made it back, but we’re still not here.

His mother, overcome with emotion and embracing her son, issued a plea: “We call on the entire world, on every country — help us bring all our boys home.”

Thousands of POWs remain in captivity. The exchange is the fourth this year and the 63rd since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Since the outbreak of the war, a total of 4,552 Ukrainians, both military and civilians, have been returned from captivity.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Saturday its forces pushed Ukrainian troops from the village of Oleshnya, one of their last remaining footholds in Russia’s Kursk region, where the Ukrainians staged a surprise incursion last year.

Gerasimov said Saturday in a report to Putin, quoted by Russian state media, that Russia had retaken nearly all of the territory from Ukrainian forces.

“The main part of the region’s territory, where the invasion took place, has now been liberated. This is 1,260 square kilometers, 99.5%,” Gerasimov said.

Zelenskyy wrote on X that Ukrainian forces “continued their activity on the territory of the Kursk region and are holding their positions.” Ukraine also claimed that it holds a presence beyond the Kursk region in Russian territory with an aim of preventing the offensive on the Sumy region and to fight on enemy’s soil.

The Associated Press was unable to verify the claim immediately from Russia.

According to the Russian state news agency Tass, Russia is still fighting to push Ukrainian forces out of the village of Gornal, some 7 miles (11 kilometers) south of Oleshnya.

In other developments, the Ukrainian air force reported that Russia fired 87 exploding drones and decoys in the latest wave of attacks overnight into Saturday. It said 33 of them were intercepted and another 36 were lost, likely having been electronically jammed.

Russian attacks damaged farms in the Odesa region and sparked fires in the Sumy region overnight, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said Saturday. Fires were contained, and no casualties were reported.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense, meanwhile, said its air defense systems shot down two Ukrainian drones overnight into Saturday.

Russia and Ukraine’s top diplomats on Saturday used a high-level conference in Turkey to once again trade accusations of violating a tentative U.S.-brokered deal to pause strikes on energy infrastructure, underscoring the challenges of negotiating an end to the 3-year-old war.

The two foreign ministers spoke at separate events at the annual Antalya Diplomacy Forum, a day after U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff met with with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss peace prospects. Ukraine’s European allies on Friday promised billions of dollars to help Kyiv keep fighting Russia’s invasion.

While Moscow and Kyiv both agreed in principle last month to implement a limited, 30-day ceasefire, they issued conflicting statements soon after their separate talks with U.S. officials in Saudi Arabia. They differed on the start time of halting strikes, and alleged near-immediate breaches by the other side.

“The Ukrainians have been attacking us from the very beginning, every passing day, maybe with two or three exceptions,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, adding that Moscow would provide the U.S., Turkey and international bodies with a list of Kyiv’s attacks during the past three weeks.

A representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry separately told state media Saturday that Moscow has been sharing intelligence with the U.S. regarding more than 60 supposed breaches of the deal by Kyiv.

Lavrov on Saturday insisted Russia had stuck to the terms of the deal.

His Ukrainian counterpart, Andrii Sybiha, fiercely contested that claim, saying Russia had launched “almost 70 missiles, over 2,200 (exploding) drones, and over 6,000 guided aerial bombs at Ukraine, mostly at civilians,” since agreeing to the limited pause on strikes.

“This clearly shows to the world who wants peace and who wants war,” he said.

Russian forces hold the advantage in Ukraine, and Kyiv has warned Moscow is planning a fresh spring offensive to ramp up pressure on its foe and improve its negotiating position.

Ukraine has endorsed a broader U.S. ceasefire proposal, but Russia has effectively blocked it by imposing far-reaching conditions. European governments have accused Putin of dragging his feet.

“Russia has to get moving” on the road to ending the war, U.S. President Donald Trump posted on social media Friday. He said the war is “terrible and senseless.”

Lavrov on Saturday reiterated that a prospective U.S.-backed agreement, also discussed in Saudi Arabia, to ensure safe navigation for commercial vessels in the Black Sea could not be implemented until restrictions are lifted on Russian access to shipping insurance, docking ports and international payment systems.

Details of the prospective deal were not released, but it appeared to mark another attempt to ensure safe Black Sea shipping after a 2022 agreement that was brokered by the U.N. and Turkey but halted by Russia the following year.

The Kremlin confirmed Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin has gifted to Donald Trump a portrait he commissioned of the U.S. president.

Putin gave the painting to Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, in Moscow earlier this month, the Russian president’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said in a response to a journalist’s question, declining further comment.

The gift was first mentioned last week by Witkoff in an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. Witkoff told Carlson that Trump “was clearly touched” by the portrait, which he described as “beautiful.”

Witkoff met Putin after talks with Russian officials about trying to end the war in Ukraine. Ceasefire talks continued Monday in Saudi Arabia, where U.S. officials met their Russian counterparts, a day after meeting with Ukrainian negotiators.

During his interview with Carlson, Witkoff described Putin’s gift as “gracious” and recalled how Putin told him he had prayed for Trump last year when he heard the then-candidate for the U.S. presidency had been shot at a rally in Pennsylvania. “He was praying for his friend,” Witkoff said, recounting Putin’s comments.

In 2018, Putin gave then-President Trump a soccer ball that the Secret Service had checked for listening devices before Trump gave it to his son — a precaution that hearkened back to a Soviet-era gift to a U.S. diplomat that turned out to be bugged.

In 1945, a carving of the Great Seal of the United States was given as a gift from Soviet school children to then-U.S. Ambassador Averell Harriman. It hung in his office for six years allowing the Soviet Union to eavesdrop on his conversations until the State Department discovered that it contained a covert listening device.

It was not immediately known if the portrait Putin gave to Trump had been examined for bugs. The White House hasn’t commented on the portrait.

Trump isn’t the first sitting president to receive a gift from Putin. In 2021, Putin gave then-President Joe Biden a $12,000 lacquer writing box and pen when they met at a summit in Geneva, Switzerland. In 2013, he reportedly sent then-President Barack Obama porcelain plates and espresso cups.

This apparently isn’t the first portrait of a U.S. leader Putin has sent, either. In 2014, the Russia president reportedly sent to George H.W. Bush a portrait of the former president on his 90th birthday.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday that they had a constructive call about moving toward a ceasefire between Kyiv and Moscow, with the White House suggesting the U.S. could take control of Ukrainian power plants to ensure their security.

Trump told Zelenskyy that the U.S could be “very helpful in running those plants with its electricity and utility expertise,” according to a White House statement from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and national security adviser Mike Waltz that described the call as “fantastic.”

Trump added that “American ownership of those plants could be the best protection for that infrastructure.”

Weeks after a disastrous Oval Office meeting between the two leaders that led to Trump temporarily pausing intelligence sharing and military aid to Ukraine, Trump and Zelenskyy had “a very good conversation” in which they joked around, according to a senior Ukrainian official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to comment publicly. There was an emphasis during the call on how any ceasefire process would need to be monitored and how the negotiating teams would still need to resolve technical issues, said the official.

During the call, Zelenskyy requested additional Patriot defense missile systems. Rubio and Waltz said Trump “agreed to work with him to find what was available, particularly in Europe.”

Trump has made clear that quickly ending the war is a top priority for his new administration. He has repeatedly complained about the cost — the U.S. has sent Ukraine more than $180 billion in military and economic aid since the start of the war.

The call came a day after Trump held similar talks with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, who agreed not to target Ukraine’s energy infrastructure but refused to back a full 30-day ceasefire.

According to the Kremlin, Putin made clear to Trump that there must be a halt to foreign military aide and intelligence sharing as part of any deal. But White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Wednesday underscored that U.S. “intelligence sharing in terms of defense for Ukraine” would continue.

Prior to his call with Trump, Zelenskyy said Putin’s limited ceasefire pledge was “very much at odds with reality” following an overnight barrage of drone strikes across the country.

“Even last night, after Putin’s conversation with … Trump, when Putin said that he was allegedly giving orders to stop strikes on Ukrainian energy, there were 150 drones launched overnight, including on energy facilities,” Zelenskyy said at a news conference in Helsinki with Finnish President Alexander Stubb.

Russia responded by saying it had halted its targeting of Ukraine’s energy facilities and accused Kyiv of attacking equipment near one of its pipelines.

“Unfortunately, we see that for now there is no reciprocity on the part of the Kyiv regime,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

The White House described the call between Trump and Putin as the first step in a “movement to peace” that Washington hopes will include a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea and eventually a full and lasting end to the fighting.

But there was no indication that Putin backed away from his conditions for a prospective peace deal, which are fiercely opposed by Kyiv.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said that Putin’s demands during the call with Trump would amount to “Ukrainian capitulation.”

“Putin is attempting to hold the temporary ceasefire proposal hostage in order to extract preemptive concessions ahead of formal negotiations to end the war,” the ISW said in an analysis of readouts from the calls.

Stubb called the discussions between Putin and Trump a step in the right direction, but Finland’s president said that Russia needs to end its aggression.

“There are only two ways to respond to the proposal of the president of the United States: it’s a yes or a no — no buts, no conditions,” Stubb said. “Ukraine accepted a ceasefire without any forms of conditions. If Russia refuses to agree, we need to increase our efforts to strengthen Ukraine and ratchet up pressure on Russia to convince them to come to the negotiating table.”

Waltz said on social media that he and his Russian counterpart, Yuri Ushakov, agreed Wednesday that their teams would meet soon in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, “to focus on implementing and expanding the partial ceasefire President Trump secured from Russia.”

It was not immediately clear who would be part of the delegations or if Ukrainian officials were also invited to take part in the Saudi Arabia talks.

Shortly after the call between Trump and Putin on Tuesday, air raid sirens sounded in Kyiv, followed by explosions as residents took shelter.

Despite efforts to repel the attack, several strikes hit civilian infrastructure, including two hospitals, a railway and more than 20 houses, Zelenskyy said. Russian drones were reported over Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Sumy, Chernihiv, Poltava, Kharkiv, Kirovohrad, Dnipropetrovsk, and Cherkasy regions.

The Russian Defense Ministry said its military had launched seven drones at power facilities related to the military-industrial complex in Ukraine’s southern Mykolaiv region, but that it shot them down after receiving Putin’s order to not hit energy infrastructure.

Moscow accused Ukraine of targeting its energy facility in the Krasnodar region bordering the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014, several hours after the Putin and Trump talks. The ministry said that three drones targeted oil transfer equipment that feeds the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, causing a fire and leading one oil tank to lose pressure.

“It is absolutely clear that we are talking about yet another provocation deliberately concocted by the Kyiv regime, aimed at derailing the peace initiatives of the U.S. president,” the ministry said.

Russia said that its air defenses intercepted 57 Ukrainian drones over the Azov Sea and several Russian regions — the border provinces of Kursk and Bryansk and the nearby regions of Oryol and Tula.

Zelenskyy said that “words of a ceasefire” weren’t enough.

“If the Russians don’t hit our facilities, we definitely won’t hit theirs,” Zelenskyy said.

Meanwhile, the two combatants said Wednesday that they had each swapped 175 prisoners in one of the largest exchanges of the war.

Zelenskyy rejected Putin’s key condition that Western allies stop providing military aid and intelligence to Ukraine. He said that doing so would endanger lives if citizens were blind to incoming air raids, and lead to the continuation of the war.

“I don’t think anybody should make any concessions in terms of helping Ukraine, but rather, assistance to Ukraine should be increased,” Zelenskyy said. “This will be a signal that Ukraine is ready for any surprises from the Russians.”

Nigel Gould-Davies, senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said that it was “completely unsurprising” that Putin rejected the ceasefire, adding that it’s “imprudent for him to tell President Trump that directly, since Trump has made ending the war a very, very high priority.”

“What we have now, in effect, is a competition or rivalry between Kyiv and Moscow to persuade Trump that it’s the other side that is responsible for preventing Trump from achieving his goal of ending the war,” Gould-Davies said.

Zelenskyy said that one of the most difficult issues in future negotiations would be the issue of territorial concessions.

“For us, the red line is the recognition of the Ukrainian temporarily occupied territories as Russian,” he said. “We will not go for it.”

Yehor Konovalov in Kyiv, Dasha Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia, Geir Moulson in Berlin, Aamer Madhani and Zeke Miller in Washington, and Brian Melley in London contributed to this report.

Russian President Vladimir Putin met with U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff to discuss details of the American proposal for a 30-day ceasefire in the war with Ukraine, asking him to convey Moscow’s thoughts to Washington, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday.

Putin asked Witkoff late Thursday to give additional messages to U.S. President Donald Trump, Peskov told reporters, after the Russian leader said at a news conference that he supported a truce in principle but set out a host of details that need to be clarified before it is agreed.

Trump said the U.S. held “very good and productive” discussions with Putin the day before. In a post on his Truth Social site Friday morning, Trump said “that there is a very good chance that this horrible, bloody war can finally come to an end,” adding that Ukrainian troops are surrounded by the Russian military.

Ukraine, under severe military pressure on parts of the front line three years after Russia’s full-scale invasion, has already endorsed the truce proposal. Russia’s army has gained battlefield momentum, and analysts say Putin likely will be reluctant to rush into a ceasefire while he feels he has an advantage. The Russian army, backed by North Korean troops, are now close to completely driving Ukrainian forces from their foothold in Russia’s Kursk border region in what would be a major setback for Kyiv.

Ukraine’s General Staff, however, denied Friday that its forces in Kursk are encircled by Moscow’s troops and said that any reports to that effect were “fabricated by the Russians for political manipulation and to exert pressure on Ukraine and its partners.”

A possible phone call between Putin and Trump to settle outstanding ceasefire issues could be arranged after Witkoff delivers the messages in Washington, Peskov said. “There is an understanding on both sides that such a call is needed,” Peskov said.

“There are certainly some grounds for cautious optimism,” Peskov said of the ceasefire proposal. “A lot still needs to be done, but the president has shown solidarity with President Trump’s position.”

U.S. officials have said Washington was set to discuss technical issues related to a possible ceasefire next week. Given the range of issues on the table, and the sharp differences between what Moscow and Kyiv want, it could potentially take weeks or months for the guns to fall silent.

Trump vowed during his election campaign to settle the war in 24 hours, but in January he changed that timeframe, voicing hope that peace could be negotiated in six months.

Putin’s apparently amicable tone toward the White House reflects the remarkable shift in U.S. relations with Russia and Ukraine since Trump returned to office in January. Former President Joe Biden had sought to isolate Putin.

Trump has threatened both Russia and Ukraine with punitive measures if they don’t engage with his peace efforts.

Trump briefly cut off critical military aid and intelligence sharing in an apparent effort to push Kyiv to enter talks on ending the war. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had a tense meeting at the White House on Feb. 28 in which Trump questioned whether Ukraine wanted to halt the war.

Trump has raised the possibility of tightening sanctions on Russia, though his administration has also repeatedly embraced Kremlin positions on the conflict, including indicating that Ukraine’s hopes of joining NATO are unlikely to be realized and that it probably will not get back the land that Russia’s army occupies, which amounts to nearly 20% of the country.

Meanwhile, Russian air defenses downed four Ukrainian drones attacking the Russian capital early Friday, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said. One damaged the roof of an apartment building a few kilometers (miles) from the Kremlin.

Several other buildings were lightly damaged by drone fragments, but there were no injuries, according to emergency officials.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that he agrees in principle with a U.S. proposal for a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine, but he emphasized that the terms are yet to be worked out and added that any truce should pave the way to lasting peace.

“The idea itself is correct, and we certainly support it,” Putin told a news conference in Moscow. “But there are issues that we need to discuss, and I think that we need to talk about it with our American colleagues and partners and, perhaps, have a call with President Trump and discuss it with him.”

President Donald Trump said there have been “good signals” coming out of Russia and offered guarded optimism about Putin’s statement. He reiterated that he’s ready to speak with Putin and underscored that it was time to end the war.

Putin “put out a very promising statement, but it wasn’t complete,” Trump said Thursday at a start of a meeting at the White House with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. “Now we’re going to see whether or not Russia’s there. And if they’re not, it’ll be a very disappointing moment for the world.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Putin is “essentially preparing to reject” the ceasefire.

Putin “is afraid to tell President Trump directly that he wants to continue this war, that he wants to kill Ukrainians,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly address to the nation. “That is why, in Moscow, they are surrounding the idea of a ceasefire with such preconditions that nothing will come of it — or at least, it will be delayed as long as possible.”

The Russian president, he added, “often acts this way. He doesn’t say ‘no’ outright but ensures that everything drags on and that normal solutions become impossible.”

Putin, who launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than three years ago, noted the need to control possible breaches of the truce and signaled that Russia would seek guarantees that Ukraine would not use the break in hostilities to rearm and continue mobilization.

“We agree with the proposals to halt the fighting, but we proceed from the assumption that the ceasefire should lead to lasting peace and remove the root causes of the crisis,” Putin said.

The Russian leader made the remarks just hours after the arrival of Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, in Moscow for talks on the ceasefire, which Ukraine has accepted. A Kremlin adviser said Putin planned to meet with Witkoff later Thursday.

The diplomatic effort coincided with a Russian claim that its troops have driven the Ukrainian army out of a key town in Russia’s Kursk border region, where Moscow has been trying for seven months to dislodge Ukrainian troops from their foothold.

Putin said it appeared that the U.S. persuaded Ukraine to accept a ceasefire and that Ukraine is interested because of the battlefield situation, particularly in Kursk.

Referring to the Ukrainian troops in Kursk, he questioned what will happen to them if the ceasefire takes hold: “Will all those who are there come out without a fight? Or will the Ukrainian leadership order them to lay down arms and surrender?”

Putin thanked Trump “for paying so much attention to the settlement in Ukraine.”

He also thanked the leaders of China, India, Brazil and South Africa for their “noble mission to end the fighting,” a statement that suggested those countries could be involved in a ceasefire deal. Russia has said it will not accept peacekeepers from any NATO members to monitor a prospective truce.

Putin’s seemingly friendly tone toward the White House reflected the astonishing shift in U.S. relations with Russia and Ukraine since Trump returned to office in January.

Under the administration of former President Joe Biden, the United States was Ukraine’s staunchest and most powerful ally and a force for isolating the Kremlin. But Trump’s election threw that policy into reverse.

Trump briefly cut off critical military aid and intelligence sharing in an apparent effort to push Kyiv to enter talks to end the war, and Zelenskyy had a testy meeting at the White House on Feb. 28 in which Trump questioned whether Ukraine wanted to halt the war.

The Trump administration has also repeatedly embraced Kremlin positions on the conflict, including indicating that Ukraine’s hopes of joining NATO are unlikely to be realized and that it probably will not get back the land that Russia’s army occupies, which amounts to nearly 20% of the country.

The Russian Defense Ministry’s claim that it recaptured the town of Sudzha, a Ukrainian operations hub in Kursk, came hours after Putin visited his commanders in the Kursk region. The claim could not be independently verified. Ukrainian officials made no immediate comment.

As Trump seeks a diplomatic end to the war, he has made veiled threats to hit Russia with new sanctions if it does not engage with peace efforts.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC Thursday that Trump is “willing to apply maximum pressure on both sides,” including sanctions that reach the highest scale on Russia.

The U.S. still has about $3.85 billion in congressionally authorized funding for future arms shipments to Ukraine, but the Trump administration has shown no interest so far in using that authority to send additional weapons as it awaits the outcome of peace overtures.

By signaling its openness to a ceasefire at a time when the Russian military has the upper hand in the war, Ukraine has presented the Kremlin with a dilemma — whether to accept a truce and abandon hopes of making new gains, or reject the offer and risk derailing a cautious rapprochement with Washington.

The Ukrainian army’s foothold inside Russia has been under intense pressure for months from the renewed effort by Russian forces, backed by North Korean troops. Ukraine’s daring incursion last August led to the first occupation of Russian soil by foreign troops since World War II and embarrassed the Kremlin.

Ukraine launched the raid in a bid to counter the unceasingly grim news from the front line, as well as to draw Russian troops away from the battlefield inside Ukraine and to gain a bargaining chip in any peace talks. But the incursion did not significantly change the dynamic of the war.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, assessed late Wednesday that Russian forces were in control of Sudzha, a town close to the border that previously was home to about 5,000 people.

Ukraine’s top military commander, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, said Russian aircraft conducted so many strikes on Kursk that Sudzha had been almost completely destroyed. He did not comment on whether Ukraine still controlled the settlement but said his country was “maneuvering (troops) to more advantageous lines.”

Associated Press Writer Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sounded steadfast about his country’s place in any plans to end its war with Russia during an in-depth interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” which aired on Sunday.

Amid reports that America’s top diplomats are soon set to meet with Russian representatives to try and broker a peace deal, Zelenskyy said Ukraine must have a seat at the table.

“I will never accept any decisions between the United States and Russia about Ukraine, never,” Zelenskyy told moderator Kristen Welker while in Germany for the Munich Security Conference on Friday. “This is the war in Ukraine, against us, and it’s our human losses.”

While Zelenskyy seemed unequivocal about his nation having a say in how the conflict ends, President Donald Trump’s Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, said that European leaders’ chance to control negotiations had passed.

Referring to efforts led by France and Germany back during the Obama administration, Kellogg said during a Saturday event attended by top diplomats and prime ministers, “They failed miserably. So we’re not going to go down that path.”

Despite suggesting he may reject a deal made without Ukraine’s input, Zelenskyy said he believes Trump has a unique sway on Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Though he maintained that Putin “doesn’t want any peace,” Zelenskyy told Welker he thinks Russia’s leader is “a little bit scared” of Trump.

“I think the president has this chance, and he’s strong, and I think that really he can push Putin to peace negotiations,” he said.

While Zelenskyy appeared adamant about Ukraine’s role in negotiations, he admitted it would be hard for his nation to “survive” without American resources backing it.

“It will be very, very, very difficult,” he told Welker, adding that the country would have a “low chance” without America’s support.

Over the past three years, U.S. military aid for Ukraine came with few strings attached. Earlier this week, however, Trump declared any further wartime investments would hinge on whether Ukraine was willing to supply some of the region’s “valuable rare earths” in exchange.

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday apologized to his Azerbaijani counterpart for what he called a “tragic incident” following the crash of an Azerbaijani airliner in Kazakhstan that killed 38 people, but stopped short of acknowledging that Moscow was responsible.

Putin’s apology came as allegations mounted that the plane had been shot down by Russian air defenses attempting to deflect a Ukrainian drone strike near Grozny, the regional capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya.

An official Kremlin statement issued Saturday said that air defense systems were firing near Grozny airport as the airliner “repeatedly” attempted to land there on Wednesday. It did not explicitly say one of these hit the plane.

The statement said Putin apologized to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev “for the fact that the tragic incident occurred in Russian airspace.”

The readout said Russia has launched a criminal probe into the incident, and Azerbaijani state prosecutors have arrived in Grozny to participate. The Kremlin also said that “relevant services” from Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are jointly investigating the crash site near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan.

The plane was flying from Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, to Grozny when it turned toward Kazakhstan, hundreds of kilometers (miles) across the Caspian Sea from its intended destination, and crashed while making an attempt to land. There were 29 survivors.

According to a readout of the call provided by Aliyev’s press office, the Azerbaijani president told Putin that the plane was subject to “external physical and technical interference,” although he also stopped short of blaming Russian air defenses.

Aliyev noted that the plane had multiple holes in its fuselage and that the occupants had sustained injuries “due to foreign particles penetrating the cabin mid-flight.”

He said that a team of international experts had begun probing the incident at Azerbaijan’s initiative, but provided no details. Earlier this week, the Azerbaijani Prosecutor General’s office confirmed that investigators from Azerbaijan are working in Grozny.

On Friday, a U.S. official and an Azerbaijani minister made separate statements blaming the crash on an external weapon, echoing those made by aviation experts who blamed the crash on Russian air defense systems responding to a Ukrainian attack.

Passengers and crew who survived the crash told Azerbaijani media that they heard loud noises on the aircraft as it was circling over Grozny.

Dmitry Yadrov, head of Russia’s civil aviation authority Rosaviatsia, said Friday that as the plane was preparing to land in Grozny in deep fog, Ukrainian drones were targeting the city, prompting authorities to close the area to air traffic.

Yadrov said that after the captain made two unsuccessful attempts to land, he was offered other airports but decided to fly to Aktau.

Earlier in the week, Rosaviatsia had cited unspecified early evidence as showing that a bird strike led to an emergency on board.

In the days following the crash, Azerbaijan Airlines blamed “physical and technical interference” and announced the suspension of flights to several Russian airports. It didn’t say where the interference came from or provide any further details.

If proven that the plane crashed after being hit by Russian fire, it would be the second deadly civil aviation accident linked to fighting in Ukraine. Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was downed with a Russian surface-to-air missile, killing all 298 people aboard, as it flew over the area in eastern Ukraine controlled by Moscow-backed separatists in 2014.

Russia has denied responsibility, but a Dutch court in 2022 convicted two Russians and a pro-Russia Ukrainian man for their role in downing the plane with an air defense system brought into Ukraine from a Russian military base.

Following Wednesday’s suspension of flights from Baku to Grozny and nearby Makhachkala, Azerbaijan Airlines announced Friday that it would also halt service to eight more Russian cities.

Several other airlines have made similar announcements since the crash. Kazakhstan’s Qazaq Air on Friday said it would stop flying from Astana to the Russian city of Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains for a month.

Turkmenistan Airlines, the Central Asian country’s flagship carrier, on Saturday halted flights to Moscow for at least a month, citing safety concerns. Earlier this week, Israel’s El Al carrier suspended service from Tel Aviv to the Russian capital, citing “developments in Russia’s airspace.”