Ukraine rejects Russian ceasefire proposal, citing unacceptable territorial preconditions

KYIV — Ukraine formally rejected a Russian ceasefire proposal delivered through Saudi mediators, President Volodymyr Zelensky's office announced Tuesday, with senior officials in Kyiv saying the framework's territorial demands amounted to capitulation rather than a path to peace.

The proposal, transmitted during a third round of indirect talks at the Diriyah Palace in Riyadh on April 14, required Ukrainian forces to withdraw fully from the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions within 45 days before any halt to hostilities, according to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, who briefed reporters at the Foreign Ministry in Kyiv on Tuesday afternoon.

"No sovereign nation can accept preconditions that surrender its own citizens and constitutional territory as the price of silencing the guns," Sybiha said. "A ceasefire must freeze the lines, not redraw them in the Kremlin's favor."

Presidential Office head Andriy Yermak confirmed that Zelensky communicated the rejection to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in a 40-minute phone call Monday evening, while reaffirming Kyiv's willingness to continue dialogue on a "lines-of-contact" freeze and prisoner exchanges. Yermak said Ukraine had submitted a 14-point counter-framework calling for an unconditional 60-day truce along the 1,200-kilometer front, the return of an estimated 19,546 deported Ukrainian children identified by the Bring Kids Back UA initiative, and international monitoring under a joint UN-OSCE mandate with Turkish and Swiss observers.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, responding from Moscow, called the rejection "predictable" and accused Kyiv of "torpedoing the constructive efforts of our Saudi partners." Russian presidential aide and lead negotiator Yuri Ushakov departed Riyadh aboard a government aircraft Wednesday morning, according to flight data confirmed by Russian state news agency TASS.

The collapse of this round carried immediate consequences. European Council President António Costa announced Wednesday in Brussels that the EU would accelerate disbursement of the €6.5 billion tranche from the Ukraine Facility originally scheduled for June, releasing the funds by May 6. Germany confirmed the delivery of an additional 12 IRIS-T air defense systems and 30,000 155mm artillery rounds following an emergency call between Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Zelensky on Tuesday night.

On the battlefield, the Ukrainian General Staff reported intensified Russian glide-bomb strikes on Kharkiv and Sumy oblasts overnight, killing at least nine civilians and wounding 31, including four children in the village of Velyka Pysarivka. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, speaking at a press conference in Riyadh, said the Kingdom would "persist in shuttle efforts," with a fourth round tentatively scheduled for May 27 in Jeddah, though no agenda has been set.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who traveled to Riyadh last week, said in a statement from Washington that the United States "regrets the impasse" but would continue to support Saudi-led mediation and sustain military aid flows authorized under the April supplemental.