Russian President Vladimir Putin has put out a list of demands for ending the war in Ukraine — and they’re almost entirely unchanged from even before he launched his brutal invasion more than three years ago. 

The authoritarian wants a written letter by Western leaders that they would not allow Ukraine to join NATO — a red line for the security alliance whose charter holds that any country can join if they are approved unanimously by its member states, three Russian sources told Reuters on Wednesday.

Putin further wants NATO to disavow more expansion to the east, also barring Georgia and Moldova from joining the alliance.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s conditions for ending the war in Ukraine include a demand that Western leaders pledge in writing to stop enlarging NATO eastwards, according to reports. Getty Images

He also wants the West to lift sanctions on his country, whose economy has taken a harsh hit since the world protested his invasion of its sovereign neighbor.

Two other conditions — the unfreezing of Russian assets and “protection” for Ukraine’s Russian speakers — are also key desires, according to Reuters. 

“Putin is ready to make peace but not at any price,” one senior Russian source with knowledge of top-level Kremlin thinking told Reuters.

One Russian source said that if Putin realizes he is unable to reach a peace deal on his own terms, he will seek to show the Ukrainians and the Europeans by military victories that “peace tomorrow will be even more painful”.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he wants to end the deadliest European conflict since World War II and has shown increasing frustration with Putin in recent days. AP

But Ukrainian leaders have urged the West not to believe Putin’s claims of wanting to make nice, pointing to the Kremlin’s strategy of delaying President Trump’s entreatoes and refusal to take any action the US has requested as a way to show it’s ready for peace.

“Such a leader as Putin and such a country as Russia, these are not the entities which we can trust. And the grounds for that are multiple, but starting with the Budapest Memorandum,” Cmdr. Oleh Victorovich, an officer in the Ukrainain Armed Forces, said, referencing Moscow’s 1994 promise not to invade or attack Ukraine if Kyiv agreed to give up its nuclear weapons. 

“So the first thing is, we cannot believe or trust anything that Putin Putin’s promises or Russia’s promises.” The second thing is, by saying this, Putin is declaring it’s his wish list. Basically, he’s declaring his wishes. 

Russian sources said Putin wants a “written” pledge by major Western powers not to enlarge the US-led NATO alliance eastwards – shorthand for formally ruling out membership to Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova and other former Soviet republics. AP

Further, the Ukrainian officer said Putin’s latest demands add up to little more than the Russian president “declaring his wish list.”

“It’s like ask for an elephant and receive a donkey,” Victorovich said, using a Ukrainian allegory.

“And while these kind of negotiations are ongoing, he ramps up strikes on Ukraine with drones and missiles, and he’s trying to start attacks along the whole front line.” 

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte speaks after a meeting at NATO Headquarters, in Brussels, Belgium May 28, 2025. REUTERS

“By that, he’s raising the stakes, and he is trying to raise his significance and his status by these maximalist demands. And the response to that — to these maximalist demands — is who is he to tell Ukraine and the collective West what to do?” 

But Putin’s new “wish list” is not actually new. Stopping NATO’s eastward expansion and keeping Ukraine “neutral” was part of Russia’s jutification for the invasion of Ukraine.

What he received was quite the opposite. Sweden and Finland, which shares a border with Russia, joined NATO a little more than a year after Putin invaded Ukraine.

Additionally, Bosnia and Georgia have also stated their desire to join NATO since the invasion occurred.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attend a press conference at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, May 28, 2025. REUTERS

A second source said that Putin was now less inclined to compromise on territory and was sticking to his public stance that he wanted the entirety of the four regions in eastern Ukraine claimed by Russia. via REUTERS

The latest wish list comes as Trump has grown ever more frustrated with Putin, who has resisted all of the US’ requests that Ukraine has gladly accepted — from a 30-day unconditional cease-fire to the willingness of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to show up for direct talks with Putin.

“What Vladimir Putin doesn’t realize is that if it weren’t for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened to Russia, and I mean REALLY BAD,” Trump said of the Russian dictator on Truth Social Tuesday. “He’s playing with fire!”

However, the president on Wednesday told reporters that he would give Putin roughly another two weeks to prove he is willing to take measurable steps toward peace.

“We’re going to find out whether or not he’s tapping us along or not, and if he is, we’ll respond a little bit differently,” he said. “But it’ll take about a week and a half.”

— With Post wires