BISHKEK: President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that the outlines of a draft peace plan discussed by the United States and Ukraine could become the basis of future deals to end the war in Ukraine, but that if not, Russia would fight on.
Diplomatic efforts to defuse Europe’s deadliest and most devastating conflict since World War Two have been stepped up in recent weeks, with various peace plans emerging from different sides, including the United States and Europe.
“In general, we agree that this can be the basis for future agreements,” Putin told a news conference in Kyrgyzstan, adding that the variant of the plan discussed by Washington and Kyiv in Geneva had been passed to Moscow.
US and Ukrainian negotiators held talks on the latest US-backed peace plan in Geneva on Sunday.
Putin said the United States was taking into account Russia’s position, but that some things still needed to be discussed. If Europe wanted a pledge from Russia not to attack it, then Russia was willing to give such a pledge, he said.
Russia, Putin noted, was being told that it should cease the fighting but needed Kyiv’s forces to pull back before it could do so.
“Ukrainian troops must withdraw from the territories they hold, and then the fighting will cease. If they don’t leave, then we shall achieve this by armed means. That’s it,” Putin said.
Russian forces were advancing in Ukraine at a faster pace now, he added. With another winter approaching in the nearly four-year war, Russian forces control almost one-fifth of Ukraine – in its east and south – and are pushing forward while bombarding Ukrainian energy infrastructure.
Putin said he considered the Ukrainian leadership to be illegitimate and so it was legally impossible to sign a deal with Kyiv.
It was therefore important, he said, to ensure that any agreement was recognised by the international community – and that the international community recognised Russian gains in Ukraine.
“Therefore, broadly speaking, of course, we ultimately want to reach an agreement with Ukraine. But right now, this is practically impossible. Impossible legally,” Putin said.
He said that the Crimean peninsula, which Russia seized from Ukraine and annexed in 2014, and Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region should be a topic for discussions with Washington.
Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff plans to visit Moscow next week. Commenting on the leak of a recording of a call between top advisers to Trump and Putin, the Kremlin chief rejected the suggestion that Witkoff had shown himself to be biased towards Moscow in peace talks over Ukraine, describing it as nonsense. – Reuters
