Putin backs US truce idea for Ukraine in principle

President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia supported a US proposal for a ceasefire in Ukraine in principle, but that any truce would have to address the root causes of the conflict and that many crucial details needed to be sorted out.

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"We agree with the proposals to cease hostilities,” Putin told reporters at a news conference in the Kremlin following talks with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. “The idea itself is correct, and we certainly support it.”

“But we proceed from the fact that this cessation should be such that it would lead to long-term peace and would eliminate the original causes of this crisis.”

He went on to list a slew of issues he said needed clarifying and thanked US President Donald Trump, who says he wants to be remembered as a peacemaker, for his efforts to end the war which both Moscow and Washington now cast as a deadly proxy war which could have escalated into World War Three.

Trump, who said he was willing to talk to the Russian leader by phone, called Putin's statement “very promising” but said it was not complete and that he hoped Moscow would “do the right thing.”

“Hopefully they'll do the right thing,” Trump told reporters during an Oval Office meeting with Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte.

Trump said he did not think Russia would attack US allies.