Kremlin awaits details from US on Ukraine ceasefire plan; Duterte arrives to face murder charges at ICC

Former Philippines leader Rodrigo Duterte, who was arrested on murder charges linked to his war on drugs, arrived in the Netherlands on Wednesday ahead of his expected handover to the International Criminal Court (ICC), a source told Reuters.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday rejected the idea of holding negotiations with the US over a nuclear deal, as a letter arrived from US President Donald Trump calling for such talks.

Russia awaits details from US on Ukraine ceasefire proposal 

The Kremlin said on Wednesday it was awaiting details from Washington about a proposal for a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine, while senior Moscow sources said a deal would have to take account of Russia’s advances and address its concerns.

After Russian forces made gains in 2024, US President Donald Trump reversed US policy on the war, launching bilateral talks with Moscow and suspending military assistance to Ukraine, demanding that it take steps to end the conflict.

The United States agreed on Tuesday to resume weapons supplies and intelligence sharing after Kyiv said at talks in Saudi Arabia that it was ready to support a ceasefire proposal.

The Kremlin said it was carefully studying the results of the meeting and would await details from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House National Security Adviser Mike Waltz.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov suggested a reporter was getting “a little ahead” of himself by asking if Russia intended to tie a ceasefire proposal to the lifting of international sanctions imposed over the war in Ukraine.

“Rubio and Waltz said that they would pass on detailed information to us through various channels about the essence of the conversation that took place in Jeddah. First, we must receive this information,” said Peskov.

Rubio said the US was hoping for a positive response, and that if the answer was “no” then it would tell Washington a lot about the Kremlin’s true intentions.

He said there would be contacts with Moscow on Wednesday, that Europe would have to be involved in any security guarantee for Ukraine, and that the sanctions Europe has imposed would also be on the table.

Asked whether Russia could accept the ceasefire unconditionally, Rubio said: “That’s what we want to know — whether they’re prepared to do it unconditionally.”

In Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hailed this week’s meeting in Saudi Arabia between US and Ukrainian officials as constructive, and said a potential 30-day ceasefire with Russia could be used to draft a broader peace deal.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 has left hundreds of thousands of dead and injured, displaced millions of people, reduced towns to rubble and triggered the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West in six decades.

Ukrainian troops appeared on the point of losing their hard-won foothold inside Russia’s Kursk region on Wednesday as Moscow claimed further advances there and military bloggers on both sides said Kyiv’s forces were withdrawing.

Russian media group Agentstvo, which analysed Ukrainian open-source maps, said that Ukraine controlled just 150 square kilometres in Kursk now. A Ukrainian source said last year it had controlled 1,376 square kilometres of territory in Kursk.

President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said that he is ready to talk about an end to the war and Trump says he thinks Putin is serious, though other Western leaders disagree.

Trump said on Tuesday that he hoped Russia would agree to a ceasefire and that he would talk to Putin this week.

Reuters reported in November that Putin was ready to negotiate a deal with Trump, but would refuse to make major territorial concessions and would insist Kyiv abandon ambitions to join Nato.

A senior Russian source told Reuters that Putin would find it hard to agree to the ceasefire idea without hashing out terms and getting some sort of guarantees.

“Putin has a strong position because Russia is advancing,” the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation, told Reuters.

Without guarantees alongside a ceasefire, Russia’s position could swiftly become weaker and Russia could then be blamed by the West for failing to end the war, they added.

“So yes, we are in favour of a truce with both hands, but we need at least framework guarantees and at least from the United States.”

Another senior Russian source said the ceasefire proposal looked, from Moscow’s perspective, to be a trap because Putin would find it hard to halt the war without concrete guarantees or pledges.

A third Russian source said the most important development was that the US had renewed military aid to, and intelligence sharing with, Ukraine, merely decorating that move with a ceasefire proposal.

Konstantin Kosachev, chairperson of the international affairs committee of the Federation Council, the upper house of Russia’s parliament, said on Telegram that Russia’s advances in Ukraine must be taken into account.

“Real agreements are still being written there, at the front. Which they should understand in Washington, too,” he said.

Putin has repeatedly said a short-term truce is not the way to end the war.

“We don’t need a truce, we need a long-term peace secured by guarantees for the Russian Federation and its citizens,” he said in December. “It is a difficult question how to ensure these guarantees.”

In June, he set out his terms for peace: Ukraine must officially drop its Nato ambitions and withdraw its troops from the entirety of four Ukrainian regions claimed and mostly controlled by Russia, which holds just under a fifth of Ukraine.

Ukraine says the regions have been annexed illegally and that it will never recognise Russian sovereignty over them.

The conflict in eastern Ukraine began in 2014 after a Russia-friendly president was toppled in Ukraine's Maidan Revolution and Russia annexed Crimea, with Russian-backed separatist forces then fighting Ukraine's armed forces in the east.

Duterte arrives to face murder charges at ICC for drug war killings

Former Philippines leader Rodrigo Duterte, who was arrested on murder charges linked to his war on drugs, arrived in the Netherlands on Wednesday ahead of his expected handover to the International Criminal Court (ICC), a source told Reuters.

Reuters reporters saw the chartered plane that Duterte (79) was believed to be on, land at Rotterdam airport. The source confirmed he was onboard.

Duterte was to be handed over to the ICC in The Hague, where he will face allegations of crimes against humanity for overseeing death squads in his war on drugs.

Duterte was set to be transferred to a detention unit on the Dutch coast.

He has been accused of dozens of murders and will be brought before a judge in the coming days for his initial court appearance.

Duterte, who led the Philippines from 2016 to 2022, was arrested early on Tuesday in Manila, marking the biggest step yet in the ICC’s probe into an anti-drugs crackdown that killed thousands and drew condemnation around the world.

He could become the first Asian former head of state to go on trial at the ICC in The Hague.

Iran’s Khamenei rejects idea of nuclear talks with US 

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday rejected the idea of holding negotiations with the US over a nuclear deal, as a letter arrived from Trump calling for such talks.

Trump said last week he had sent a letter to Khamenei proposing nuclear talks but also warning that “there are two ways Iran can be handled: militarily, or you make a deal” preventing Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

The letter was handed over to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi on Wednesday by Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the president of the United Arab Emirates.

While Araqchi and Gargash were meeting, Khamenei told a group of university students that Trump’s offer for talks was “a deception aimed at misleading public opinion”, state media reported.

“When we know they won’t honour it, what’s the point of negotiating? Therefore, the invitation to negotiate ... is a deception of public opinion,” Khamenei was quoted as saying by state media.

Khamenei said negotiating with the Trump administration, which he said has excessive demands, “will tighten the knot of sanctions and increase pressure on Iran”.

In 2018, Trump withdrew the US from Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and reimposed sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy. Tehran reacted a year later by violating the deal’s nuclear curbs.

Khamenei, who has the final word in Iranian state matters, said last week that Tehran would not be bullied into talks with “excessive demands” and threats.

The UAE, one of Washington’s key Middle East security partners and host to US troops, also maintains warm ties with Tehran. Despite past tensions, business and trade links between The two countries have remained strong, and Dubai has served as a key commercial hub for Iran for more than a century.

While leaving the door open for a nuclear pact with Tehran, Trump has reinstated the “maximum pressure” campaign he applied in his first term as president to isolate Iran from the global economy and drive its oil exports towards zero.

Iran has long denied wanting to develop a nuclear weapon.

“If we wanted to build nuclear weapons, the US would not be able to stop it. We ourselves do not want it,” said Khamenei.

However, Iran’s stock of uranium enriched to up to 60% purity, close to the roughly 90% weapons-grade level, has jumped, said the International Atomic Energy Agency late last month. DM