Thursday | 4th December 2026
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday hardened Moscow’s position on territorial control in eastern Ukraine, declaring that Russia would seize the Donbas region “by military or other means,” reinforcing one of the Kremlin’s central demands even as diplomatic efforts to end the war continue on multiple fronts. The remarks underscore the widening gap between Moscow and Kyiv’s positions as both sides prepare for further peace talks that have yet to yield a concrete settlement.
Putin is scheduled to arrive in New Delhi on Thursday for a high-profile visit hosted by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. His trip comes just two days after he hosted a US delegation at the Kremlin led by special envoy Steve Witkoff, signaling intensified diplomatic maneuvering by all parties involved in the conflict.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials are also set to travel to the United States on Thursday after being invited to hold fresh talks with their American counterparts on a potential framework to end Moscow’s nearly three-year-long war against Ukraine. A Ukrainian source with direct knowledge of the discussions told CNN that the delegation would seek clarity on Washington’s latest proposals following the Moscow meetings.
Ahead of the Modi summit, Putin gave an interview to India Today in which he vowed that Russia would “liberate Donbas and Novorossiya in any case – by military or other means,” according to state news agency TASS. His comments reaffirmed Moscow’s refusal to retreat from its core territorial objectives despite mounting international pressure.
One of the Kremlin’s biggest demands remains that Ukraine surrender territory in the Donbas region—an area Russia has illegally annexed but has not yet fully conquered. The term “Novorossiya,” or “New Russia,” is a historical imperial-era designation for swathes of southern and eastern Ukraine. Putin has revived the concept in recent years, notably using it to justify Russia’s claim over the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in 2014.
As Russia doubles down on these sweeping territorial demands, which Ukrainian leaders continue to categorically reject, prospects for compromise appear increasingly remote. Kyiv has repeatedly insisted that any peace agreement requiring the surrender of sovereign territory is a non-starter and violates international law.
Despite Putin’s assertive rhetoric, Russia’s battlefield progress has been slow and costly. According to an analysis by the Institute for the Study of War, Russian forces would only be able to fully seize the rest of Ukraine’s Donetsk region by August 2027 at their current rate of territorial advance—highlighting the significant military challenges Moscow still faces.
Putin also offered rare insight into his recent closed-door meeting in Moscow on Tuesday with Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of US President Donald Trump. According to Putin, Russia disagreed with several aspects of the American proposal but nonetheless acknowledged the complexity of the negotiations. He reiterated core Russian demands that Ukraine withdraw all troops from Donbas and “refrain from military action,” TASS reported.
The meeting, Putin said, lasted for several hours because both sides went “through each point of the peace proposals,” suggesting intensive but difficult discussions with no immediate breakthrough.
Trump later told reporters on Wednesday that the US delegation had a “very good meeting” with Putin and that they believed the Russian leader “would like to see the war ended.” However, Trump also cautioned that progress would depend on mutual concessions. “What comes out of that meeting?” he said. “I can’t tell you, because it does take two to tango.”
Both Moscow and Washington have remained deliberately vague about what tangible progress, if any, was made in the latest round of negotiations. Talks have been ongoing since a controversial 28-point plan drafted by the Trump administration was leaked in late November. Several elements of the proposal were widely viewed as favorable to Russia and included ideas that had previously been rejected by Ukraine and senior European officials.
Only limited details from this latest engagement have surfaced. Putin’s senior aide and foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov confirmed that territorial issues were specifically discussed during Tuesday’s meeting. “Without territory, we do not see a solution to the crisis,” Ushakov said, adding that some elements of the US proposals “look more or less acceptable,” while others “do not suit us.”
On the Ukrainian side, Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, who heads Kyiv’s negotiation team, and General Andrii Hnatov, Ukraine’s Chief of the General Staff, are traveling to Miami on Thursday for their own set of high-level talks with US officials. There, they will review the outcome of Witkoff and Kushner’s Moscow visit, according to Oleksandr Bevz, an adviser to the Presidential Chief of Staff and a member of Ukraine’s negotiating team.
These discussions come just four days after a previous round of talks between senior US and Ukrainian officials, which US Secretary of State Marco Rubio described as “a very productive and useful session where … additional progress was made.” However, despite these diplomatic flurries, deep divisions over territory, security guarantees, and sovereignty continue to block a clear path toward ending the war.