Putin vows Russia will seize Donbas region by any means, as Ukrainians prepare for fresh US peace talks
Russian President Vladimir Putin told Indian media that Moscow would seize the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine “in any case,” including by military means, according to Russian state media, digging in on one of his key demands as Ukrainian officials prepare for another round of peace talks which have yet to yield a deal.
Putin is set to arrive in New Delhi on Thursday where he will be hosted by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, two days after a meeting at the Kremlin with a US delegation led by special envoy Steve Witkoff.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials are traveling to the US on Thursday, where they have been invited to hold talks with their American counterparts on a plan to end Moscow’s war, a Ukrainian source with knowledge of the situation told CNN.
Ahead of the Modi summit, Putin gave an interview with India Today, in which he said Russia would “liberate Donbas and Novorossiya in any case – by military or other means,” according to Russian state media TASS.
One of the Kremlin’s biggest demands is for Ukraine to surrender territory in the Donbas region, which Russia has illegally annexed but not yet fully conquered. Novorossiya, or New Russia, is a historical term referring to territories toward the west during the Russian empire; Putin has revived the term, and used it in declaring the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea as part of Russia in 2014.
Putin also described his meeting in Moscow on Tuesday with Witkoff and US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, saying it lasted a long time since both parties had to “go through each point of the peace proposals,” according to TASS.
Putin added that Russia did not agree with some of the points of the US proposal, but that it was a “difficult task.” He reiterated Russia’s demands that Ukraine withdraw its troops from Donbas and “refrain from military action,” according to TASS.
Ukrainian officials continue to reject Russia’s maximalist demands, which are seen as non-negotiable for the Kremlin.
Trump said Wednesday the US delegation had a “very good meeting” with Putin, and that they believed the Russian president “would like to see the war ended” – though the talks failed to yield a breakthrough.
Both sides have remained coy about any progress they made in these negotiations, though Putin’s aide and foreign policy advisor Yuri Ushakov said they discussed territory in the meeting, “without which we do not see a solution to the crisis.”
He added that some points in the American proposals “look more or less acceptable,” while others “do not suit us.”
Ukrainian officials Rustem Umerov, the head of the country’s delegation, and Andrii Hnatov, Kyiv’s Chief of the General Staff, are traveling to Miami Thursday for their own peace talks with the US.
This latest round of talks comes four days after a previous high-level meeting between US and Ukrainian officials that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio described as “a very productive and useful session where … additional progress was made.”
