China has promoted a 12-point peace plan
to the war in Ukraine
which has been widely discredited.
Calls by Putin for a ceasefire in Ukraine also appear to contradict his increasingly aggressive posture around Russia’s nuclear weapons.
This week, Russian forces
practised using a tactical nuclear weapon
on a mock battlefield and Putin also visited Belarus for talks focused on Russian nuclear weapons stationed there since last year.
Analysts said the Kremlin comments may be designed to spread dissent among some of Ukraine’s European allies who are growing tired of the cost of backing Kyiv.
Samuel Ramani, an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, said: “Putin is effectively harnessing the ‘immediate ceasefire’ component of China’s peace proposal to present a good faith image, knowing that Ukraine will not accept this.”
Senior EU defence officials dismissed the comments from the Kremlin sources and promised to double down on support for Ukraine to head off the Russian invasion.
“Our position at the EU level and in connection with our US partners is that we will continue to deliver the necessary aid to avoid any failure and defeat, which will not only be catastrophic for Ukraine and for us,” a senior EU official said.
“We are not changing our direction and the determination is fully intact despite what Putin can say or has announced,” he added.
“We are on the same track of full support for Ukraine.”
Western officials have previously described Putin’s calls for peace talks as “disingenuous” in the belief that the Russian president still holds maximalist war aims to topple the Ukrainian government.
Mykhailo Podolyak, one of Mr Zelensky’s main advisers, called the offer of peace “rather disgusting”.
“Putin is once again mockingly offering democracies to lose, to kneel down. Not to Ukraine, but to Western democracies.?
“No more, but no less. Because this is not about peace, rules, or a ceasefire, but only about impunity and the continuation of the war,” he said.