There were “certainly reasons to be cautiously optimistic” about the prospect of peace in Ukraine, the Kremlin said Friday, after President Donald Trump’s envoy met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

The comments by Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov after Putin met with Trump administration envoy Steve Witkoff echoed those of the Russian president, who said Thursday that he in theory accepted the ceasefire proposed by the United States and Ukraine — but only on terms tantamount to a victory over Ukraine.

It was an emphatic "yes, but."

“We agree with the proposals to stop the hostilities,” Putin said in a speech. But only if it leads “to long-term peace and eliminate the root causes of this crisis.”

That term — “root causes” — is a reference to long-held Russian grievances about what it sees as NATO’s eastward expansion. Western officials and analysts reject this, saying Putin wants to subjugate Ukraine, drawing it into Russia’s sphere of influence and away from its European tilt.

Despite flirting with the Trump administration, there is little evidence Putin has shifted from his core war goals: cementing his land grabs in Ukraine and stopping it from ever joining NATO. Even so, Trump on Thursday called Putin's remark “a promising statement.”

In a post on Truth Social on Friday, Trump called his administration's discussions with Putin "very good and productive," expressing optimism "that this horrible, bloody war can finally come to an end."

Switching to all caps, Trump highlighted the stakes of the ceasefire, while positioning himself as a peacemaker by noting that thousands of Ukrainian troops are "completely surrounded by the Russian military, and in a very bad and vulnerable position."

"I have strongly requested to President Putin that their lives be spared. This would be a horrible massacre, one not seen since World War II. God bless them all!!!" he added.

Many officials and experts across Ukraine and Europe are far less impressed.

During his nightly address Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called Putin’s words “manipulative.”

"Putin often does this — he does not say ‘no’ directly, but he does it in such a way that practically everything only delays it and makes normal decisions impossible,” he said, adding, “Putin, of course, is afraid to tell President Trump directly that he wants to continue this war, that he wants to kill Ukrainians.”

Indeed, hours after Putin spoke, his military fired 27 drones at Ukraine overnight into Friday, Ukraine's Armed Forces said.

Some were shot down, according to Ukraine's military, but one hit a civilian hospital in the western village of Zolochiv, setting fire to the building and injuring one staff member.

In the southern city of Kherson, NBC News found a scene of destruction after Russia's latest bombing, which occurs most nights.

Rescue workers were clearing rubble and fixing power lines in a residential area where several homes were blown apart in what they said was a Russian glide bomb attack the day before.

Mykola Vorobjovskii, 69, said he was inside his house when it was destroyed.

“Putin is a liar,” Vorobjovskii told NBC News, choking back tears as he stood next to the wreckage of his home. “He calls black white and white black. He said he is liberating Ukraine. He liberated me from my house, job and car.”

Some Western experts believe the Russian leader is in a tight spot and that his evasive response was an attempt to balance two competing realities.

First, the Kremlin has no reason to accept a truce unless it delivers him a favorable outcome; and second, he wants to achieve a settlement with the White House while it is led by a president amenable to Moscow, said Jonathan Eyal, a director at the Royal United Services Institute think tank in London.

“It’s not in Putin’s interest to get a ceasefire now," Eyal said Friday. "However, he cannot afford to annoy the American president, and expose and humiliate him with an outright rejection.”

The deal on offer to Putin is not going to improve, Eyal said, adding that the Russian president has “got an amazing opportunity to return to the global stage and [escape] from his isolation — with the help of the United States,” he added. So “he’s got to try to grab this deal without making too many concessions on Ukraine, and that’s his dilemma.”

Officials in Kyiv will be hoping to use Putin’s “evasive” response to “help convince their American colleagues that the Kremlin dictator is not genuinely interested in ending the war,” wrote Mykola Bielieskov, a research fellow at the National Institute for Strategic Studies, a Ukrainian think tank.

While Putin may entertain a truce with terms favorable to Moscow, he will not accept an independent Ukrainian state on Russia’s border, Bielieskov wrote for the Atlantic Council.

“This does not mean that current U.S.-led peace efforts are entirely futile, but it is vital to recognize that freezing the conflict along the current front lines will not be enough to end the war.”

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“We aren’t going to take Moscow,” so Ukraine will lose land, says Trump ally

The Kremlin has said it is “cautiously optimistic” about a ceasefire in Ukraine after a late-night meeting with the US envoy Steve Witkoff. But Putin will need a phone call with President Trump to settle any outstanding issues. 

Kamal and Cleo speak to ally of President Trump, Secretary Robert Wilkie, and Ukraine: The Latest presenter Dom Nicholls who was with the UK Defence Secretary John Healey when he travelled to Paris for the emergency security summit this week.

And as an exclusive poll reveals that Reform is likely to win big in the local elections, we assess the state of play in Westminster, with trouble brewing for the Government. The PM faces a rebellion on welfare cuts next week and there are more economic headwinds for Rachel Reeves with her spring statement fast approaching...

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After Trump request, Putin says he will let Ukraine troops in Kursk live if they surrender

U.S. President Donald Trump urged Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin on Friday to spare Ukrainian troops that Russia is pushing out of its Kursk region, an appeal Putin said he would honor if they surrendered.

Trump posted on social media after his envoy, Steve Witkoff, held a lengthy meeting with Putin on Thursday night in Moscow that Trump described as "very good and productive".

"There is a very good chance that this horrible, bloody war can finally come to an end," Trump said, referring to a U.S. ceasefire proposal that Ukraine accepted this week and was under consideration by Russia.

The U.S. president said Russia's military had "completely surrounded" thousands of Ukrainian troops in Kursk who were "in a very bad and vulnerable position".

"I have strongly requested to President Putin that their lives be spared. This would be a horrible massacre, one not seen since World War II. God bless them all!!!"

Military analysts have said Ukrainian forces in Kursk are nearly cut off after rapidly losing ground in what had been their only foothold in Russian territory.

Putin has accused Ukrainian troops of carrying out crimes against civilians in Kursk, something Kyiv denies. But the Russian president said he understood the call by Trump to take humanitarian considerations into account.

"In this regard, I would like to emphasize that if (the Ukrainian troops) lay down their arms and surrender, they will be guaranteed life and decent treatment in accordance with international law and the laws of the Russian Federation," Putin said.

The deputy chairman of Russia's security council, former President Dmitry Medvedev, posted on social media that if Ukrainian troops "refuse to lay down their arms, they will all be methodically and mercilessly destroyed."

Kyiv's military, however, said there was no threat of encirclement, and its troops were pulling back to better positions.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, at a G7 meeting in La Malbaie, Canada, said Witkoff was returning to the United States from Moscow and there may be discussions about Ukraine over the weekend.

"But we certainly feel like we're at least some steps closer to ending this war and bringing peace. But it's still a long journey," he told reporters.

KYIV DENIES ANY KURSK ROUT

Kursk became a key theatre of the war in August when Ukraine, 2-1/2 years after Putin's full-scale invasion, turned the tables by grabbing a piece of Russia's own territory, a potential bargaining chip in future negotiations.

Seven months on, Kursk is once again in the spotlight, as Russian forces attempt to expel the Ukrainians completely and the U.S. urges Russia to agree to a ceasefire in the wider war.

Moscow said on Friday its forces had recaptured another Kursk village. But Ukraine's general staff said the battlefield situation was largely unchanged.

"Reports of the alleged 'encirclement' of Ukrainian units by the enemy in Kursk are false and fabricated by the Russians for political manipulation," it said, adding that units had "withdrawn to more advantageous defensive positions."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told reporters that the Kursk offensive had succeeded in diverting Russian forces from elsewhere on the battlefront.

Zelenskiy added that he saw "a good chance" to end the war, having "solid security understandings" with European partners.

He said he was discussing with Kyiv's allies future security guarantees and also economic support, adding that 100% air defence cover would be required as deterrence in a peace deal.

The Kremlin said Putin sent Trump a message about his ceasefire plan via Witkoff, expressing "cautious optimism" that a deal could be reached to end the three-year-old conflict.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who met Trump on Thursday, told Fox News that Trump's drive to get Russia to spare the lives of Ukrainian soldiers was "extremely helpful and extremely important."

But he said NATO needed long-term collective deterrence so that Russia would never again seek to capture territory anywhere in the world.

The Trump administration launched its latest round of outreach to Moscow this week after Ukraine agreed in principle to a ceasefire at talks with U.S. officials in Saudi Arabia.

TRUMP URGES PUTIN TO SIGN CEASEFIRE DEAL

On Friday, Trump again pressed Russia to sign and complete "a Cease Fire and Final Agreement".

Putin said on Thursday he supported Trump's proposal in principle, but fighting could not be paused until several crucial conditions were worked out, raising the prospect of longer negotiations.

Despite Putin's apparent conditions, Trump called Putin's statement "very promising".

Putin has said he wants Ukraine to drop its ambitions to join NATO and limit the size of its army. Russia also wants Ukraine to cede control of four regions Moscow claims, a demand rejected by Kyiv.

He has also made clear he wants Western sanctions eased and a presidential election to be held in Ukraine, which Kyiv says is premature while martial law remains in force.

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