Putin Vows To Take Ukraine’s Donbas Region By Force

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that Russia will seize full control of Ukraine’s Donbas region through military force unless Ukrainian troops withdraw from the region.

He made the comments in a broadcast on Russian state television from an interview with India Today ahead of a visit to India’s capital, New Delhi.

“Either we liberate these territories by force of arms, or Ukrainian troops leave these territories,” he said.

Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 after years of conflict between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.

The Donbas region comprises the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which remain at the centre of the war.

Ukraine has ruled out any territorial concessions. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Ukraine will not “gift” Russia land it has failed to capture on the battlefield and has warned against rewarding aggression.

Russia currently occupies about 19.2% of Ukraine’s territory, including Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.

Russia controls all of Luhansk, more than 80% of Donetsk, about 75% of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, and smaller parts of the Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions. Around 5,000 square kilometres of Donetsk remain under Ukrainian control.

Despite ongoing contacts with the United States over the outline of a possible peace deal, Russia has repeatedly insisted that any settlement must grant it full control of the entire Donbas. Russia has also called on Washington to informally recognise its control over the territory.

Putin confirmed that he recently met U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in the Kremlin, describing the discussions as “very useful.”

Russia’s RIA news agency quoted him as saying the talks were based on proposals he had previously discussed with President Donald Trump in Alaska in August, adding that some American proposals had already been accepted and that negotiations should continue.

As diplomatic talks continue, Russian attacks overnight knocked out power and heating for tens of thousands of people in southern Ukraine, highlighting the growing civilian cost of the war as winter approaches.

Ukraine’s largest private energy company, DTEK, said Russian strikes hit its energy facilities in the Odesa region, cutting electricity to 51,800 households. In the frontline city of Kherson, regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin said attacks forced the shutdown of a heat and power plant, leaving 40,500 residents without heating.

“This entirely civilian facility has suffered serious damage,” Prokudin said, accusing Russia of waging war against the civilian population.

Ukraine’s energy ministry also reported that about 60,000 residents in the frontline Donetsk region were left without electricity due to Russian attacks.

Russia has stepped up strikes against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in recent weeks, plunging entire cities and regions into darkness as temperatures drop.

Speaking at the annual meeting of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in Vienna, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Ukraine wants “real peace, not appeasement,” warning against any deal that sacrifices Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

“We still remember the names of those who betrayed future generations in Munich. This should never be repeated again,” Sybiha said, referring to the 1938 agreement that allowed Nazi Germany to annex parts of Czechoslovakia.

He said Europe’s history showed that unjust peace deals only lead to further catastrophes, while thanking the United States for advancing diplomatic efforts to end the war.

Zelenskyy said his team was preparing for further meetings in the United States and that dialogue with Trump’s representatives would continue.

Russia, meanwhile, continues to treat Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia as part of its sovereign territory after declaring their annexation in 2022 following referendum dismissed by Ukraine and Western governments as illegal.

However, most countries continue to recognise the regions, along with Crimea, as part of Ukraine.