Russian President Vladimir Putin said in snippets from an interview, to be aired later on Thursday, that his country will take control of Donbass and Novorossiya by either military means or other methods.
“It all comes down to this. Either we will liberate these territories by force of arms, or Ukrainian troops will leave these territories and stop fighting there,” Putin stressed in the interview with India Today.
Furthermore, the Russian leader revealed that Moscow offered Kiev the opportunity to withdraw from Donbas and prevent military confrontation, but the Ukrainian authorities chose to enter into conflict.
“We immediately told Ukraine, the Ukrainian troops: the people don’t want to live with you. They went out to the referendum and voted for independence. Withdraw your troops, and there will be no military action. No, they prefer to fight. Well, now they’ve had enough,” Putin emphasized.
Talks “Productive, But Too Early to Assess”
Meanwhile, in remarks carried by Ria Novosti news agency on Thursday, the Russian strongman said the meeting with US President Donald Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner was “productive and necessary”, but added that “it’s too early to assess.”
He said the “proposals that the US delegation brought to Moscow were based on the agreements with Trump at the Alaska summit.”
Earlier on Wednesday, the Kremlin’s top foreign policy aide called Tuesday’s talks “useful” but said “no compromise plan” has been found yet following the hours-long meeting in Moscow.
“There is still a lot of work to be done,” the aide, Yury Ushakov, told reporters following the meeting.
According to Ushakov, Putin told the US delegation that Russia could agree with some parts of the US plan but disagreed with others.
For his part, Trump said the talks were “reasonably good”, but added that it was too soon to say what would happen because “it does take two to tango.”
When asked by a reporter whether Witkoff and Kushner believed Putin genuinely wanted to end the war, Trump said: “[Putin] would like to end the war. That was their impression.”
US President Trump said that a meeting between two US envoys and Russian President Vladimir Putin was ‘reasonably good’ but that it is unclear what happens now https://t.co/BL6HblHUkb pic.twitter.com/C4KKGTuL0j
— Reuters (@Reuters) December 3, 2025
The White House announced on Thursday that Witkoff will meet the head of Ukraine’s national security council, Rustem Umerov, for talks in Miami later today.
Source: Agencies (edited by Al-Manar)
