Tunde Sulaiman 
Vladimir Putin said fighting must end in Ukraine, but added that a ceasefire should lead to “enduring peace and remove underlying causes of this crisis”.
He says the idea of a ceasefire is “good and we absolutely support it but there are issues that we need to discuss”.
The US and Ukraine have said the ball is now “in Russia’s court”, but Putin has just tried to push the ball back into theirs, writes BBC Monitoring’s Vitaliy Shevchenko.
The Russian president was speaking as Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff is in Moscow ahead of US-Russia talks on a 30-day ceasefire proposal.
President Trump says he would “love” to meet Putin during talks with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, adding that they have to get the fighting in Ukraine “over with fast”. Earlier, the Kremlin said it was in the final stage of the operation to drive Ukraine from territory it seized in Kursk.
