President Vladimir Putin has doubled down on his key demands to end the war in Ukraine, saying Russia will lay down its arms only if kyiv’s troops withdraw from territory claimed by Moscow.
Putin has long pushed for legal recognition of Ukrainian territories that Russia has seized by force.
They include the Crimean peninsula, which it illegally annexed in 2014, and the Donbas, made up of Luhansk and Donetsk, which Moscow now mostly occupies.
For kyiv, which has ruled out giving up the parts of Donbas it still holds, rewarding Russia for its aggression is impossible.
Speaking to reporters during a trip to Kyrgyzstan, Putin repeated his view that Russia has the initiative on the battlefield and that the fighting would only end when Ukrainian troops withdraw from the conflicted territories.
“If they do not withdraw, we will achieve it by force of arms,” he said.
However, Russia’s slow advances in eastern Ukraine have come at a significant cost in manpower. According to the US-based Institute for the Study of War, at this rate it would take Moscow almost two more years to seize the rest of the Donetsk region.
Thursday’s comments were the first time Putin addressed the hectic diplomatic moves of the past week, in which the United States and Ukraine held intense discussions over a peace plan reportedly drafted in October by U.S. and Russian officials.
The plan, which was heavily weighted toward Moscow’s demands, was later revised. However, it is believed not to address the issue of the occupied territories which, along with security guarantees for Ukraine, is the biggest sticking point between Moscow and kyiv.
Putin said a new draft of the plan has now been shown to Russia and could become the “basis” for a future agreement to end the war.
However, he added that it was “absolutely necessary” to discuss “some specific points that must be expressed in diplomatic language.”
Asked about the possibility of Crimea and Donbas being recognized under Russian rule de facto control but not legally, Putin said: “This is the point of our discussion with our American counterparts.”
A US delegation, including special envoy Steve Witkoff, is expected to arrive in Moscow in the first half of next week, he confirmed. US President Donald Trump told reporters earlier this week that Witkoff could be accompanied in Moscow by the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s top presidential adviser, Andriy Yermak, said US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll will visit kyiv later this week.
Earlier this week, Trump said there remained “only a few points of disagreement” between Russia and Ukraine, indicating that any meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss these points was contingent on reaching a peace deal.
During his statements to journalists, Putin again expressed his contempt for the Ukrainian leaders, whom he considered illegitimate and that, therefore, it made “no sense” to sign the documents.
Ukraine has been under martial law since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022 and has therefore been unable to hold the planned elections. Earlier this year, the Ukrainian parliament voted unanimously to affirm the legitimacy of President Zelensky, whose term ended in the spring.
Putin also dismissed warnings from European leaders that Russia could attack the European continent in the coming decades.
“That really seems ridiculous to us,” he said.
The White House and Donald Trump have been optimistic about the recent diplomatic push for peace talks, but Europeans have repeatedly expressed skepticism about whether Putin really intended to end the war.
On Wednesday, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen accused Russia of maintaining a post-World War II mentality and viewing the European continent as a “sphere of influence” in which sovereign nations could be “divided.”
