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Russian President Vladimir Putin said successful an interrogation published connected Thursday (December 4, 2025) that Russia would instrumentality afloat power of Ukraine’s Donbas region by unit unless Ukrainian forces withdraw, thing Kyiv has flatly rejected.
Mr. Putin sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine successful February 2022 aft 8 years of warring betwixt Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops successful the Donbas, which is made up of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
Putin’s India sojourn LIVE - December 4, 2025
“Either we liberate these territories by unit of arms, oregon Ukrainian troops permission these territories,” Mr. Putin told India Todayahead of a sojourn to New Delhi, according to a clip shown connected Russian authorities television.
Ukraine says it does not privation to acquisition Russia its ain territory that Moscow has failed to triumph connected the battlefield, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said Moscow should not beryllium rewarded for a warfare it started.
Russia presently controls 19.2% of Ukraine, including Crimea, which it annexed successful 2014, each of Luhansk, much than 80% of Donetsk, astir 75% of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, and slivers of the Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions.
About 5,000 quadrate k.m. of Donetsk remains nether Ukrainian control.
In discussions with the United States implicit the outline of a imaginable bid woody to extremity the war, Russia has repeatedly said that it wants power implicit the full of Donbas — and that the United States should informally recognise Moscow’s control.
Russia successful 2022 declared that the Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia were present portion of Russia aft referenda that the West and Kyiv dismissed arsenic a sham. Most countries recognise the regions — and Crimea — arsenic portion of Ukraine.
Mr. Putin received U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner successful the Kremlin connected Tuesday (December 2, 2025), and said that Russia had accepted immoderate U.S. proposals connected Ukraine, and that talks should continue.
Russian Information Agency (RIA) cited Mr. Putin arsenic saying that his gathering with Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner had been “very useful” and that it had been based connected proposals helium and U.S. President Donald Trump had discussed successful Alaska successful August.
