KYIV, Ukraine — U.S. arms deliveries to Ukraine resumed Wednesday, officials said, a day after the Trump administration lifted its suspension of military aid for Kyiv in its fight against Russia’s invasion, and Ukrainian officials signaled that they were open to a 30-day cease-fire backed by Washington.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that it’s important not to “get ahead” of the question of responding to the cease-fire proposal. He told reporters that Moscow is awaiting “detailed information” about it from the U.S. and suggested that Russia must get that first before it can take a position.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the 30-day cease-fire would allow the sides “to fully prepare a step-by-step plan for ending the war, including security guarantees for Ukraine.”
Technical questions over how to effectively monitor a truce along the roughly 600-mile front line, where small but deadly drones are a common sight, are “very important,” Zelensky told reporters in Kyiv on Wednesday.
Arms deliveries to Ukraine have already resumed through a Polish logistics center, the foreign ministers of Ukraine and Poland announced Wednesday. The deliveries go through a NATO and U.S. hub in the eastern Polish city of Rzeszow that has been used to ferry Western weapons into neighboring Ukraine about 45 miles away.
The American military help is vital for Ukraine’s shorthanded and weary army, which is having a tough time keeping Russia’s bigger military force at bay. But for Moscow, more American aid spells potentially more difficulty in achieving its war aims and likely will be a tough sell in Moscow for Washington’s peace efforts.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday that Washington will pursue “multiple points of contacts” with Russia to see if President Vladimir Putin is ready to negotiate an end to the war. He declined to give details.
“The ball is truly in their court,” Rubio said at a refueling stopover in Shannon, Ireland, on his way to talks in Canada with other Group of 7 leading industrialized nations.
Rubio said he hoped to see Russia stop attacks on Ukraine within the next few days as a first step.
“We don’t think it’s constructive to stand here today and say what we’re going to do if Russia says no,” Rubio said, adding he wanted to avoid statements about Russia that “are abrasive in any way.”
Escalation of conflict amid cease-fire talks
His comments came amid an intensifying Russian effort to push Ukrainian forces out of its Kursk region that has yielded breakthroughs in recent days, Ukrainian soldiers told the Associated Press. The fighting has escalated as cease-fire talks come to a head, with Moscow intent on taking back its territory and Kyiv determined to hold onto it as a bargaining chip in any negotiations.
Ukrainian forces made a daring raid into the Russian region last August in the first foreign occupation of Russian territory since World War II. They have held on despite intense pressure from tens of thousands of Russian and North Korean troops.
Recent fighting reportedly has focused on the Kursk town of Sudzha, which is a key Ukrainian supply hub and operational base. Ukrainian soldiers said the situation is dynamic and fighting continues in and around the town, but three of them conceded Russian forces were making headway.
Russian state news agencies RIA Novosti and Tass reported Wednesday that the Russian military have entered Sudzha. It wasn’t possible to independently verify either side’s claims.
Inside Ukraine, Russian ballistic missiles killed at least five civilians, officials said Wednesday,
President Trump wants to end the three-year war and pressured Zelensky to enter talks. The suspension of U.S. assistance came days after Zelensky and Trump argued about the conflict in a tense White House meeting.
Rubio, who led the American delegation to Tuesday’s talks in Saudi Arabia, said Washington would present the cease-fire offer to the Kremlin, which has so far opposed anything short of a permanent end to the conflict and hasn’t accepted any concessions.
“We’re going to tell [the Russians] this is what’s on the table. Ukraine is ready to stop shooting and start talking. And now it’ll be up to them to say yes or no,” Rubio told reporters after the talks. “If they say no, then we’ll unfortunately know what the impediment is to peace here.”
Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, is expected to travel this week to Moscow, where he could meet with Putin, according to a person familiar with the matter but not authorized to comment publicly. The person cautioned that scheduling could change.
Russian officials are wary about the U.S.-Ukraine talks
Russian lawmakers signaled wariness about the prospect of a cease-fire.
“Russia is advancing [on the battlefield], so it will be different with Russia,” senior Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev noted in a post on the messaging app Telegram.
“Any agreements [with the understanding of the need for compromise] should be on our terms, not American,” Kosachev wrote.
Lawmaker Mikhail Sheremet told the state news agency Tass that “Russia is not interested in continuing” the war but at the same time Moscow “will not tolerate being strung along.”
The outcome of the Saudi Arabia talks “places the onus on Washington to persuade Moscow to accept and implement the cease-fire,” said John Hardie, a defense analyst and deputy director of the Russia Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based research institute.
“Moscow will present itself as cooperative, but may push for agreement on basic principles for a final peace deal before agreeing to a cease-fire,” he said.
“Russia may also insist on barring Western military aid to Ukraine during the cease-fire and on Ukraine holding elections ahead of a long-term peace agreement.”
Russia’s foreign intelligence service, known as the SVR, reported Wednesday morning that the service’s chief, Sergei Naryshkin, spoke on the phone with CIA Director John Ratcliffe on Tuesday.
The two discussed cooperation “in areas of common interest and the resolution of crisis situations,” according to a statement by the SVR.
Kullab and Arhirova write for the Associated Press. Stefanie Dazio in Berlin and Sylvie Corbet in Paris contributed to this report.