Russian President Vladimir Putin has drilled into Indian media one of his key demands, saying Russia will occupy Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region “in any case,” including by military means, as Ukrainian authorities prepare for a second round of peace talks that have yet to be agreed upon, Russian state media reported.
Putin will arrive in New Delhi on Thursday, two days after meeting at the Kremlin with a U.S. delegation led by special envoy Steve Witkoff, and will be entertained by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials are visiting the United States on Thursday and have been invited to talk with their American counterparts about Russia’s plan to end the war, a Ukrainian source familiar with the situation told CNN.
According to Russian state media Tass, in an interview with India Today ahead of his summit with Prime Minister Modi, President Putin said that Russia “will liberate Donbass and Novorossia in any case, by military or other means.”
One of the Kremlin’s biggest demands is for Ukraine to surrender territory in the Donbas region, which Russia has illegally annexed but has not yet fully conquered. Novorossia, or New Russia, is a historical term referring to the western territories of the Russian Empire. President Putin revived the term and used it in 2014 when he declared Crimea, a peninsula in Ukraine, as part of Russia.
Putin also described Tuesday’s meeting in Moscow with Witkov and US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, saying it lasted a long time because both sides had to “consider each point of the peace plan,” according to TASS.
Putin added that Russia does not agree with some points of the US proposal, but that it is a “difficult task.” He reiterated Russia’s demands for Ukraine to withdraw its troops from Donbas and “refrain from military action,” TASS reported.
Ukrainian officials continue to reject Russia’s extremist demands, which the Kremlin considers non-negotiable.
President Trump said Wednesday that the U.S. delegation had a “very good meeting” with Putin and believed the Russian president “wants the war to end,” but the talks did not lead to a breakthrough.
Both countries have remained silent on the progress of negotiations, but Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s aide and foreign policy advisor, said the talks discussed territory and that “without it, we cannot see a solution to the crisis.”
He added that some aspects of the U.S. proposal “seem more or less acceptable,” while others “do not suit us.”
The head of the Ukrainian government delegation, Rustem Umerov, and Kiev’s chief of staff, Andriy Natov, are visiting Miami on Thursday for peace talks with the United States.
This latest meeting comes four days after the previous high-level meeting between U.S. and Ukrainian officials, which U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio described as “a very productive and useful meeting that…made further progress.”
