U.S. says Ukraine determines own governance after Putin suggests temporary administration
Elections are not allowed to be held in Ukraine when martial law is in effect
Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested Ukraine be placed under a form of temporary administration to allow for new elections and the signature of key accords to reach a settlement in the war, Russian news agencies reported early on Friday.
Putin's comments, during a visit to the northern port of Murmansk, come amid U.S. attempts to forge a settlement to the conflict by re-establishing links with Russia and engaging with both Moscow and Kyiv, in separate talks.
Russia, Putin said, was in favour of "peaceful solutions to any conflict, including this one, through peaceful means, but not at our expense."
The Kremlin leader has been accused by Ukraine and European leaders of trying to prolong ceasefire talks without any serious intent of stopping fighting.
Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has left hundreds of thousands of dead and injured, displaced millions of people, reduced towns to rubble and triggered the sharpest confrontation for decades between Moscow and the West.
Putin's suggestion of a temporary administration appeared linked to his long-held complaint that Ukraine's authorities are, in his view, not a legitimate negotiating partner as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stayed in power beyond the May 2024 end of his mandate.
"In principle, of course, a temporary administration could be introduced in Ukraine under the auspices of the UN, the United States, European countries and our partners," Putin was quoted as saying in talks with seamen at the port.
"This would be in order to hold democratic elections and bring to power a capable government enjoying the trust of the people and then to start talks with them about a peace treaty."
Zelenskyy has rejected any notion questioning his legitimacy, saying Ukraine is barred by law from holding elections under martial law and holding a poll in wartime conditions would in any case prove impossible.
Latest U.S.-Ukraine mineral deal draft
A White House National Security Council spokesperson, asked about Putin's remarks on temporary administration, said governance in Ukraine was determined by its constitution and the people of the country.
The Trump administration, which has reoriented Washington's policy toward endorsing Russia's narrative about the three-year-old war in Ukraine, has been pressing Kyiv for weeks to sign a deal giving Washington a stake in Ukraine's resources.
The terms of a mineral deal between Ukraine and the U.S. have not yet been finalized, Ukrainian officials said on Friday.
The latest U.S. proposal would require Kyiv to send Washington all profit from a fund controlling Ukrainian resources until Ukraine had repaid all American wartime aid, plus interest, according to the summary, reviewed by Reuters.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko told lawmakers that Kyiv would issue its position on the new draft only once there was consensus. Until then, public discussion would be harmful, she said.
Zelenskyy said on Thursday Washington was constantly changing the terms but that he did not want the U.S. to think he was opposed to the mineral deal in principle.
Three people familiar with the ongoing negotiations said Washington had revised its proposals. The latest draft gives Ukraine no future security guarantees and requires it to contribute to a joint investment fund all income from the use of natural resources managed by state and private enterprises.
According to the summary, it stipulates that Washington is given first rights to purchase extracted resources and recoup all the money it has given Ukraine since 2022, plus interest at a four per cent annual rate, before Ukraine begins to gain access to the fund's profits.
The joint investment fund would be managed by the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation and have a board of five people, three appointed by the U.S. and two by Ukraine.
The updated proposal was first reported by the Financial Times.
Both sides say energy facilities struck
More than three years after launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian forces now hold about 20 per cent of the country, with Moscow declaring four regions annexed. Its forces have also recovered much of the territory it initially lost in a Ukrainian incursion last August into its western Kursk region.
Western and Ukrainian sources say more than 11,000 North Korean troops have been sent to bolster Russian forces in the Kursk region, although Moscow has not confirmed this.
In fighting on Friday, Russia accused Ukraine of attacking its energy facilities despite a moratorium on such strikes, saying a key piece of gas infrastructure in the town of Sudzha had been practically destroyed.
Reuters could not independently establish the claim.
Russia reserves the right to withdraw from a U.S.-brokered moratorium on Moscow and Kyiv striking each other's energy infrastructure if Ukraine continues to attack such targets, a Kremlin spokesperson on Friday.
The United States announced separate agreements with Ukraine and Russia on Tuesday to pause their strikes in the Black Sea and against each other's energy targets, but each side has accused the other of breaking the energy truce, underscoring the fragility of the U.S.-brokered agreements.
Sudzha, in Russia's western region of Kursk, is the site of a gas-metering station at the transit point where Russia pumped gas by pipeline across Ukraine and into Europe until the end of last year.
Flows stopped on Jan. 1 after Ukraine declined to renew the deal because of the war.
A Russian drone attack damaged storage facilities and an administrative building in Ukraine's central Poltava region, local authorities said on Friday.
The facilities belonging to Ukraine's gas producer contained spare parts used to repair wells and processing facilities, Gov. Volodymyr Kohut told national television. CEO Roman Chumak of Naftogaz, the state energy firm, said in a statement that a team was undertaking a damage assessment.
The Ukrainian air force said it shot down 89 of the 163 drones launched overnight. Fifty-one did not reach their targets, likely due to electronic warfare countermeasures, the air force added.