US arms deliveries to Ukraine have resumed, officials said.
The move comes a day after the Trump administration lifted its suspension of military aid for Kyiv in its fight against Russia’s invasion, and Ukrainian officials signalled that they were open to a 30-day ceasefire backed by Washington.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said it is important not to “get ahead” of the question of responding to the ceasefire proposal.
He told reporters that Moscow is awaiting “detailed information” about it from the US and suggested that Russia must receive that first before it can take a position.
The Kremlin has previously opposed anything short of a permanent end to the conflict and has not accepted any concessions.
US President Donald Trump wants to end the three-year war and pressured Mr Zelensky to enter talks. The suspension of US assistance came days after Mr Zelensky and Mr Trump argued about the conflict in a tense White House meeting.
The administration’s decision to resume military aid after talks on Tuesday with senior Ukrainian officials in Saudi Arabia marked a sharp shift in its stance.
Mr Trump said that “it’s up to Russia now” as his administration presses Moscow to agree to the ceasefire.
“And hopefully we can get a ceasefire from Russia,” Mr Trump said Wednesday in an extended exchange with reporters during an Oval Office meeting with Micheal Martin, the Taoiseach of Ireland.
“And if we do, I think that would be 80% of the way to getting this horrible bloodbath ended.”
The US president again made veiled threats of hitting Russia with new sanctions.
“We can, but I hope it’s not going to be necessary,” Mr Trump said.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio, who led the American delegation to Tuesday’s talks in Saudi Arabia, where Ukraine consented to the US ceasefire proposal, said 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 or say what steps might be taken if Mr Putin refuses to engage.
The US hopes to see Russia stop attacks on Ukraine within the next few days as a first step, Mr Rubio said at a refuelling stop Wednesday in Shannon, Ireland, on his way to talks in Canada with other Group of Seven leading industrialised nations.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News that national security adviser Mike Waltz spoke with his Russian counterpart on Wednesday.
She also confirmed that Mr Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, will head to Moscow for talks with Russian officials.
She did not say with whom Mr Witkoff planned to meet, but a person familiar with the matter said Mr Witkoff is expected to meet with Mr Putin later his week.
Mr Zelensky said a 30-day ceasefire 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 1,000-kilometre (600-mile) front line, where small but deadly drones are common, are “very important”, Mr Zelensky told reporters in Kyiv.
Arms deliveries to Ukraine have already resumed through a Polish logistics centre, the foreign ministers of Ukraine and Poland announced on Wednesday.
The deliveries go through a Nato and US hub in the eastern Polish city of Rzeszow that has been used to ferry Western weapons into neighbouring Ukraine about 70 kilometres (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.
For Russia, the American aid spells potentially more difficulty in achieving war aims, and it could make Washington’s peace efforts a tougher sell in Moscow.
The US government has also restored Ukraine’s access to unclassified commercial satellite pictures provided by Maxar Technologies through a program Washington runs, Maxar spokesperson Tomi Maxted told The Associated Press.
The images help Ukraine plan attacks, assess their success and monitor Russian movements.
Mr Putin on Wednesday visited military headquarters in Russia’s Kursk region, where Kremlin troops are close to driving out Ukrainian forces.
Speaking to commanders, Mr Putin said he expected the military “to completely free the Kursk region from the enemy in the nearest future”.
However, Russian officials signalled wariness about the prospect of a ceasefire.
Senior Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev said 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.”
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”.
John Hardie, a defence analyst and deputy director of the Russia programme at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, a Washington-based research institute, said the outcome of the Saudi Arabia talks “places the onus on Washington to persuade Moscow to accept and implement the ceasefire”.
Russia’s foreign intelligence service, known as the SVR, reported that the service’s chief, Sergei Naryshkin, spoke by phone Tuesday with CIA Director John Ratcliffe.
The two discussed co-operation “in areas of common interest and the resolution of crisis situations,” according to a statement by the SVR.
