(Bloomberg) — President Vladimir Putin is ready to talk with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump about a ceasefire deal in Ukraine that could roughly freeze the war along the current front lines, Reuters reported, citing five unidentified current and former Russian officials. .

Putin may agree to discuss a carve-up of four regions of Ukraine – Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – that Russia annexed in 2022 but does not fully control, according to three of the people interviewed, Reuters said . The Russian leader said they are “forever” part of his country, even though only about 77% of the four regions are under Kremlin control, according to Bloomberg calculations based on open source data.

Russia may also be ready to withdraw its forces from small portions of territory it holds in the Kharkiv and Mykolaiv regions, according to two of the officials cited in the report.

Putin said earlier he remained open to negotiations, but any agreement must take into account Russia’s security interests and “realities” on the ground. In June, he outlined his position for opening negotiations, demanding that Ukraine completely withdraw from the four regions that Russia illegally annexed and abandon its ambitions in the Atlantic Treaty Organization North before a truce can come into effect.

Putin still insists that Ukraine abandon its ambitions for NATO membership and a ban on stationing alliance troops on Ukrainian soil, but he is ready to discuss security guarantees for the neighboring state , according to the five officials cited in the report.

Outgoing US President Joe Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to use ATACMS missiles in Russia could complicate and delay any settlement, Reuters cited two people as saying.

Still, U.S. authorization to use missiles to strike inside Russia allows Ukraine to speak with Russia from a position of strength, Ukraine’s ambassador to the European Union said Wednesday , Vsevolod Chentsov, at Bloomberg TV.

Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, triggering the worst hostilities in Europe since World War II and the most dangerous confrontation with the West in decades. The United States and its allies have invested tens of billions of dollars in military and financial aid to Ukraine, but kyiv has gradually lost ground in the east in recent months.

On Tuesday, Putin signed a decree lowering the threshold for using nuclear weapons, just days after Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to carry out strikes deep into Russia with long-range missiles supplied by the United States . Russia said Tuesday that Ukraine used U.S.-made ATACMS for the first time to strike Russian territory.

–With the help of Daryna Krasnolutska and Olesia Safronova.

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