Russian President Vladimir Putin has made a publicly proclaimed threat to seize the entire territory of the Donbas region in Ukraine with the use of military force, unless the Ukrainian forces pull out of the area that Kyiv has categorically denied.
This statement, released in an interview on 4th December in India Today, is after a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, further fueling an eight-year war between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops in the Donbas, the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
In an interview before a scheduled trip to New Delhi, Mr Putin said: “Either we free these lands by the sword, or Ukrainian soldiers depart these lands, as was captured on camera by Russian state TV.”
Ukraine has continuously insisted that it will not give up a territory that Moscow has not gained control over in the military. President Volodymyr Zelensky has already stated that Russia should not be given any rewards due to being the one to start the war.
Russia now occupies Ukraine, with 19.2% and Crimea, annexed in 2014, as well as over 80% of Donetsk, approximately 75% of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, a slice of Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk.
Approximately 5,000 square km (1,900 square miles) of Donetsk is controlled by Ukrainians.
When talking to the United States regarding the map of the potential peace agreement that would cease the war, Russia has consistently told them that it desires to possess the entirety of Donbas – and that the United States ought to informally acknowledge the authority of Moscow.
In 2022, Russia announced that 4 regions in Ukraine (Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia) were now Russian territories after referendums that the West and Kyiv itself rejected as a fake. The regions – and Crimea- are considered by most countries to be part of Ukraine.
On Tuesday, Putin wrote to the U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in the Kremlin that Russia had conceded to certain U.S. proposals on Ukraine, and that the negotiations must proceed.
The RIA state news agency of Russia quoted Putin as stating that his meeting with Witkoff and Kushner was highly beneficial and that he had met with them on the basis of what they had both discussed in Alaska in August.
