Russia will take full control of the Donbas (made up of the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, in eastern Ukraine) in any case, said Vladimir Putin in an interview released this Thursday, before a visit to New Delhi, the capital of India, where he is already located.
“Either we liberate these territories by force of arms, or Ukrainian troops abandon these territories”, said the Russian President in an interview with “India Today”, according to a video shown on Russian state television and cited by the news agency “Reuters”.
Russia claimed for itself, as early as September 2022, Donetsk and Lugansk (Donbas), in the east, and Kherson and Zaporizhia, in the south. In addition to these four territories – of which it only occupies Luhansk in its entirety -, Moscow annexed, in 2014, the Crimean peninsula.
Putin considers that the legal recognition of the occupied Ukrainian regions as Russian territory, especially the Donbas, is one of the central elements of the peace negotiations. Moscow has insisted on formalization of annexations as a condition for moving forward with a ceasefire in Ukraine.
However, the territorial concessions are one of the red lines for Kiev — and also for European allies — to accept a peace agreement that is fair for the country that was attacked almost four years ago. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says Russia should not be rewarded for a war it started.
At the moment, about 12% of the Donbas region is under Ukrainian control and at least 100 thousand people live in the cities of Kramatorsk, Slovyansk and others. According to Reuters data, Russia currently controls 19.2% of Ukraine, including Crimea, the entire Luhansk region, more than 80% of Donetsk, and around 75% of Kherson and Zaporizhia.
Peace talks continue. Ukraine’s main negotiator, Rustem Umerov, will meet with the US President’s special envoy for negotiations, Steve Witkoff, and the US head of state’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. The meeting should take place this Thursday in Miami.
Russia accuses Europe of undermining peace efforts
Also this Thursday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko accused European countries of “constantly and deliberately undermining” efforts to reach a solution to the conflict.
“The prospect of a political-diplomatic agreement is seen as a threat to the West,” said the Russian representative, during a speech before the Ministerial Council of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), taking place in Vienna, Austria.
“The West’s line is to try to preserve overwhelming influence not only regionally but also globally,” he continued. In his speech, the Russian deputy minister pointed out criticism of the West, particularly the countries of the European Union, in particular the Baltic republics, but did not explicitly mention the United States.