Vladimir Putin’s ceasefire offer cannot be trusted, Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, has said.

The Russian president said in a speech earlier on Friday that Russia would end the war in Ukraine if Kyiv agreed to drop its Nato ambitions and hand over the entirety of four provinces claimed by Moscow.

Mr Zelensky dismissed the offer as rubbish, saying he believed Putin would not stop his military offensive even if his ceasefire demands were met.

“These are ultimatum messages that are no different from messages from the past,” the Ukrainian leader told Italy’s SkyTG24 news channel.

“He will not stop,” Mr Zelensky said, likening Putin’s invasion of Ukraine to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler’s expansionist drive before the outbreak of the Second World War.

“It is the same thing that Hitler used to do (…) This is why we should not trust these messages,” Mr Zelensky said.

Putin demands full withdrawal of troops

Putin gave his speech on the eve of a conference in Switzerland to which Russia has not been invited.

In it he set out maximalist conditions wholly at odds with the terms demanded by Ukraine, apparently reflecting Moscow’s growing confidence that its forces have the upper hand in the war.

“The conditions are very simple,” Putin said, listing them as the full withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the entire territory of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in eastern and southern Ukraine.

Russia claimed the four regions, which its forces control only partially, as part of its own territory in 2022, an act rejected by most countries at the United Nations as illegal.

Moscow also seized and annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in 2014.

“As soon as they declare in Kyiv that they are ready for such a decision and begin a real withdrawal of troops from these regions, and also officially announce the abandonment of their plans to join Nato – on our side, immediately, literally at the same minute, an order will follow to cease fire and begin negotiations,” Putin said.

“I repeat, we will do this immediately. Naturally, we will simultaneously guarantee the unhindered and safe withdrawal of Ukrainian units and formations.”

After almost a year of stalemate, Ukraine has been forced to abandon dozens of front-line settlements this spring, with Russian troops holding a significant advantage in manpower and resources.