Kremlin Rejects Zelenskyy's 60-Day Ceasefire Idea, Wants Full Peace Deal

The Kremlin on Monday rejected a proposal from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for a 60-day ceasefire, saying Moscow is only interested in negotiating a comprehensive peace settlement rather than another partial truce, according to Reuters.

The rejection lands days after a separate, narrower energy ceasefire brokered by President Trump already fractured over disputed strikes, underscoring how far apart Moscow and Kyiv remain on even limited de-escalation steps, let alone a full settlement.

What Zelenskyy proposed

Zelenskyy’s 60-day ceasefire idea would have paused hostilities for a fixed window, a model distinct from the energy-specific truce Trump announced last week covering strikes on refineries and power infrastructure. That earlier arrangement was already in dispute before the Kremlin’s latest response: Kyiv said Monday that Russian strikes on energy facilities continued despite the ceasefire’s terms, triggering blackouts as the EU added nearly 1,600 new sanctions targeting Moscow’s military-industrial sector, as detailed in our report on the energy ceasefire violations.

Trump had publicly claimed that ceasefire was holding even as Zelenskyy pushed back on that characterization, a dispute covered in our earlier report on Trump’s claim and Zelensky’s pushback. The White House has also described its ceasefire push as applying strictly to refineries rather than the broader grid, a narrower framing laid out in our coverage of the refineries-only version of the deal.

Moscow’s position

By rejecting the 60-day proposal outright, the Kremlin signaled it does not want to repeat the pattern of narrow, time-limited truces that have characterized the war’s recent diplomatic track. Russian officials have instead insisted on negotiating what they describe as an overall peace deal, according to Reuters, though the Kremlin did not detail what terms such a settlement would need to include or when talks might resume.

The timing is notable. Zelenskyy had previously signaled conditional cooperation with a narrower, refinery-only version of a ceasefire even as Russian strikes continued, a position outlined in our report on Zelensky’s conditional halt on refinery strikes. Those earlier strikes, which Zelenskyy said killed 15 people and linked to a disputed diesel-related energy arrangement, are covered in our report on the diesel deal strikes.

Why it matters

The Kremlin’s rejection removes one of the few concrete de-escalation proposals on the table and reframes the diplomatic track around an all-or-nothing peace settlement that neither side has shown is within reach. For Kyiv, it means the war’s most immediate humanitarian pressure point — strikes on energy infrastructure heading into winter — remains unresolved by any enforceable short-term mechanism.

For Washington, the rejection complicates Trump’s broader push to show diplomatic progress on the war, coming the same day Kyiv accused Moscow of violating the narrower energy ceasefire the administration had already negotiated. Two partial arrangements — one on energy strikes, one now a rejected 60-day pause — have each failed to produce a durable de-escalation within the span of a single week.

Neither the Kremlin nor Ukrainian officials indicated whether a return to full peace talks is imminent. Reuters did not report a specific response from Zelenskyy’s office to the rejection. AmericaStrikes.com will update this story as Moscow, Kyiv, or Washington issue further statements on the ceasefire talks.