Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday proposed direct talks with Ukraine on May 15 in Turkey that he said should be aimed at bringing a durable peace, an initiative welcomed by U.S. President Donald Trump, Reuters reported.

Putin sent thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022, unleashing a war that has left hundreds of thousands of soldiers dead and triggering the gravest confrontation between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

The Russian leader, who has offered few concessions towards ending the conflict so far, said the talks in the Turkish city of Istanbul will be aimed at eliminating the root causes of the war and restoring a “long-term, lasting peace” rather than simply a pause for rearmament.

“We are proposing that Kyiv resume direct negotiations without any preconditions,” Putin said from the Kremlin in the early hours of Sunday. “We offer the Kyiv authorities to resume negotiations already on Thursday, in Istanbul.”

Putin said that he would speak to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan later on Sunday about facilitating the talks, which he said could lead to a ceasefire.

“Our proposal, as they say, is on the table. The decision is now up to the Ukrainian authorities and their curators, who are guided, it seems, by their personal political ambitions, and not by the interests of their peoples.”

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s office and Ukraine’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment on the proposal.

In a message on the social network Truth Social, Trump hailed Putin’s proposal as a positive for ending the war.

“A potentially great day for Russia and Ukraine!” Trump said. “Think of the hundreds of thousands of lives that will be saved as this never ending ‘bloodbath’ hopefully comes to an end.”

Putin’s proposal for direct talks with Ukraine came hours after major European powers demanded on Saturday in Kyiv that Putin agree to an unconditional 30-day ceasefire or face “massive” new sanctions, read the report.

Putin dismissed what he said was the attempt by some European powers to lay down “ultimatums”.

Russia, Putin said, had proposed several ceasefires, including a moratorium on striking energy facilities, an Easter ceasefire and most recently the 72-hour truce during the celebrations marking 80 years since victory in World War Two.

Both Russia and Ukraine accused each other of violating the temporary truce proposals, including the May 8-10 ceasefire.

Despite Putin’s call for peace talks, Russia on Sunday launched a drone attack on Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine, injuring one person in the region surrounding the Ukrainian capital and damaging several private homes, Ukrainian officials said.

Putin said that he does not rule out that during his proposed talks in Turkey both sides will agree on “some new truces, a new ceasefire,” but one that would be the first step towards a “sustainable” peace.

Putin, whose forces have advanced over the past year, has stood firm in his conditions for ending the war despite public and private pressure from Trump and repeated warnings from European powers.

In June 2024, he said that Ukraine must officially drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw its troops from the entirety of the territory of four Ukrainian regions claimed by Russia, read the report.

Russian officials have also proposed that the U.S. recognise Russia’s control over about one-fifth of Ukraine and demanded that Ukraine remains neutral though Moscow has said it is not opposed to Kyiv’s ambitions to join the European Union.

Putin specifically mentioned the 2022 draft deal which Russia and Ukraine negotiated shortly after the Russian invasion started.

Under that draft, a copy of which Reuters has seen, Ukraine should agree to permanent neutrality in return for international security guarantees from the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council: Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.

“It was not Russia that broke off negotiations in 2022. It was Kyiv,” Putin said. “Russia is ready to negotiate without any preconditions.”

He thanked China, Brazil, African and Middle Eastern countries and the United States for their efforts to mediate.

Trump, who says he wants to be remembered as a peacemaker, has repeatedly said he wants to end the “bloodbath” of the Ukraine war which his administration casts as a proxy war between the United States and Russia.

“I will continue to work with both sides to make sure that it happens,” Trump said in his Truth Social post on Sunday. “The USA wants to focus, instead, on Rebuilding and Trade. A BIG week upcoming!”

Former U.S. President Joe Biden, Western European leaders and Ukraine cast the invasion as an imperial-style land grab and repeatedly vowed to defeat Russian forces.

Putin casts the war as a watershed moment in Moscow’s relations with the West, which he says humiliated Russia after the Soviet Union fell in 1991 by enlarging NATO and encroaching on what he considers Moscow’s sphere of influence, including Ukraine.

Nuclear-armed neighbours India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire on Saturday after U.S. pressure and four days of fighting, but within hours explosions rang out in border cities and towns and India accused Pakistan of violating the pact, Reuters reported.

Artillery fire and attack drones were witnessed in Jammu and Kashmir, the centre of much of the fighting, while blasts from air-defence systems boomed in cities under blackout, similar to the previous evening, according to authorities, residents and Reuters witnesses.

Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri told reporters that Pakistan had violated the understanding arrived at by the two countries earlier in the day, and that the Indian armed forces had been instructed to “deal strongly” with any repetition.

“We call upon Pakistan to take appropriate steps to address these violations and deal with the situation with seriousness and responsibility,” Misri told a media briefing.

In response, the foreign ministry of Pakistan said the country was committed to the ceasefire and blamed India for the violations. “Our forces are handling the situation with responsibility and restraint,” it said.

The ministry also called on troops on the ground to exercise restraint and said that any issues in the implementation of the ceasefire should be addressed through communication at appropriate levels.

Pakistan’s military spokesperson did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The fighting has been the worst between the old South Asian enemies in nearly three decades and threatened to erupt into a full-scale war in one of the world’s most volatile and densely populated regions.

There were briefly fears that nuclear arsenals might come into play as Pakistan’s military said a top body overseeing its nuclear weapons would meet.

But the defence minister said no such meeting was scheduled, hours after a night of heavy fighting in which the two countries targeted each other’s military bases and the combined civilian death toll rose to 66.

“Pakistan and India have agreed to a ceasefire with immediate effect,” Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar posted on X. “Pakistan has always strived for peace and security in the region, without compromising on its sovereignty and territorial integrity!”

Misri had earlier said the chiefs of the two countries’ military operations had spoken to each other and agreed that all fighting would stop at 5 p.m. Indian time (1130 GMT).

U.S. President Donald Trump posted: “After a long night of talks mediated by the United States, I am pleased to announce that India and Pakistan have agreed to a FULL AND IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE. Congratulations to both Countries on using Common Sense and Great Intelligence.”

Dar told the broadcaster Geo News that military channels and hotlines between India and Pakistan had been activated, and three dozen countries had helped to facilitate the agreement.

On Wednesday, India had attacked what it said was “terrorist infrastructure” in Pakistani Kashmir and Pakistan, two weeks after 26 people were killed in an attack on Hindu tourists in Indian Kashmir, read the report.

Pakistan denied India’s accusations that it was involved in the attack. Days of cross-border fire, shelling and drone and missile attacks followed.

Despite the truce, two Indian government sources told Reuters that the punitive measures announced by India and reciprocated by Pakistan, such as trade suspension and visa cancellations, would remain in place for now.

The sources also said the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty, a critical water-sharing pact that India suspended after the Kashmir attack, would remain suspended.

The Indian foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that he and Vice President JD Vance had engaged with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistan’s Shehbaz Sharif, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Pakistan’s army chief Asim Munir, and the two national security advisers over the course of 48 hours.

In a post on X, Rubio commended Modi and Sharif on the agreement, which he said included not only an immediate ceasefire but also the start of talks on “a broad set of issues at a neutral site.”

News of the ceasefire was greeted with relief on both sides of the border and Pakistan’s airport authority said its airspace had been fully reopened.

But the subsequent violations sparked alarm in India.

“What the hell just happened to the ceasefire? Explosions heard across Srinagar!!!”, Omar Abdullah, chief minister of Indian Kashmir, posted on X. “This is no ceasefire. The air defence units in the middle of Srinagar just opened up.”

India and Pakistan have been locked in a dispute over Kashmir ever since they were born at the end of British colonial rule in 1947. Hindu-majority India and Muslim Pakistan both rule part of Kashmir but claim it in full.

They have gone to war three times, including twice over Kashmir, alongside numerous smaller outbreaks of fighting.

India blames Pakistan for an insurgency in its part of Kashmir that began in 1989 and has killed tens of thousands. It also blames Pakistani Islamist militant groups for attacks elsewhere in India.

Pakistan rejects both charges. It says it provides only moral, political and diplomatic support to Kashmiri separatists, Reuters reported.

Pakistan said it launched a military operation against India early on Saturday, targeting multiple bases including a missile storage site in northern India as the neighbours extended their worst fighting in nearly three decades.

Pakistan said that before its offensive India had fired missiles at three air bases, including one close to the capital, Islamabad, but Pakistani air defences intercepted most of them, Reuters reported.

Locked in a longstanding dispute over Kashmir, the two countries have engaged in daily clashes since Wednesday when India launched strikes inside Pakistan on what it called “terrorist infrastructure”. Pakistan vowed to retaliate.

“BrahMos storage site has been taken out in general area Beas,” Pakistan’s military said in a message to journalists, adding that the Pathankot airfield in India’s western Punjab state and Udhampur Air Force Station in Indian Kashmir were also hit.

India’s defence and foreign ministries did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours. India’s military was expected to brief the media shortly, the ministry of defence said in an advisory to the media.

Pakistan’s information minister said in a post on social media site X that the military operation was named “Operation Bunyanun Marsoos”. The term is taken from the Koran and means a firm, united structure.

Pakistan’s planning minister said on local television that “special measures” had been taken to avoid civilian targets and that they were targeting locations that had been used to target Pakistan.

Pakistan’s military said the prime minister had called a meeting of the National Command Authority, a top body of civilian and military officials, which oversees decisions on its nuclear arsenal.

Sounds of explosions were reported in India’s Srinagar and Jammu, where sirens were sounded, a Reuters witness said.

“India through its planes launched air-to-surface missiles … Nur Khan base, Mureed base and Shorkot base were made targets,” Pakistan military spokesman Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said in a late-night televised statement.

The chief minister of Indian Kashmir Omar Abdullah said in a statement a local administration official had been killed by shelling in Rajouri, near the line of control that divides the contested region.

One of the three air bases that Pakistan said were targeted by India is in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, just outside the capital Islamabad. The other two are in Pakistan’s eastern province of Punjab, which borders India.

The Pakistani military spokesman said only a few missiles made it past air defences, and those did not hit any “air assets”, according to initial damage assessments.

India has said its strikes on Wednesday, which started the clashes between the countries, were in retaliation for a deadly attack on Hindu tourists in Indian Kashmir last month.

Pakistan denied India’s accusations that it was involved in the tourist attack. Since Wednesday, the two countries have exchanged cross-border fire and shelling, and sent drones and missiles into each other’s airspace.

Much of the fighting on Friday was in Indian Kashmir and states bordering Pakistan. India said it shot down Pakistani drones.

The Group of Seven countries on Friday urged maximum restraint from both India and Pakistan and called on them to engage in direct dialogue. The United Kingdom’s High Commissioner to Pakistan, Jane Marriott, said in a statement on social media platform X that they were monitoring the developments closely.

Sounds of explosions were also heard in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore and the northwestern city of Peshawar, as the fighting threatened to spread.

At least 48 people have been killed since Wednesday, according to casualty estimates on both sides of the border that have not been independently verified.