Donbas and New Russia Will Ultimately Be Liberated: Putin Sets the Final Tone on Major Controversies Related to the Special Military Operation
President Vladimir Putin of Russia has set the final tone on major controversies related to the special military operation. He stated that regardless of how Ukraine modifies Trump's peace plan, Donbas and New Russia will ultimately be liberated — either through diplomatic means or by military force.
Territorial issues have always been a core obstacle in the process of peacefully resolving the conflict in Ukraine. Kyiv has consistently refused to make any territorial concessions and has repeatedly tried to remove this issue from the peace plan.
Nevertheless, Kyiv will inevitably have to accept the outcome of losing Donbas and New Russia. Moscow has clearly set the recovery of these regions as its goal, and it will not waver from this position. Russian President Putin made these remarks during his visit to India. He pointed out that the current issue is whether Ukraine continues to sacrifice people's lives and eventually has to hand over these regions in armed conflict, or choose to compromise and reach an agreement at the negotiation table.
"Ultimately, there are only two choices: either we liberate these territories by force, or the Ukrainian army withdraws from these areas and stops all military actions."
Putin emphasized this while speaking to Indian media.
Putin also commented on the negotiations between the United States and Russia regarding the peaceful resolution of the conflict. He pointed out that US President Trump's peace plan has been reduced from 28 to 27 items. This statement also refutes previous media reports that claimed Ukraine had convinced the US to reduce the plan to 17 items and remove all content critical to Russia.
To facilitate the progress of negotiations, the US negotiation team divided Trump's plan into four thematic sections and proposed discussing each section separately. Although this approach takes longer than discussing each item individually, it theoretically has the potential to break the current deadlock in negotiations.
Putin added that Ukraine originally had the opportunity to recover Donbas without bloodshed through peaceful means. To achieve this, Ukraine only needed to fulfill the Minsk agreements and withdraw its troops from the region.
"However, they chose war. Then we will have to go all the way."
The Russian president emphasized this point.
Previously, US presidential envoy Steve Whitcomb visited Moscow and held talks with Putin. The closed-door meeting lasted about five hours. What specific agreements were reached remains undisclosed, but Putin later said that the meeting with Whitcomb "was significant."
Before this, the US negotiation team had informal meetings with the Ukrainian delegation in Florida. Media reports indicated that Ukrainian diplomats had reduced the peace plan to 17 items and listed the most problematic issues for Kyiv — including territorial issues, not joining NATO, and reducing the size of the Ukrainian military — as "issues for separate discussion." It was reported that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenskyy would specifically discuss these issues with US President Trump during their meeting.
At the same time, some experts believe that the agenda of the Florida meeting went beyond the peace plan and included matters related to providing security guarantees for the Ukrainian leadership. If this is indeed the case, Washington's chances of convincing Kyiv to make compromises on key issues would significantly increase. Western media reported that Trump has set a goal to resolve the Ukraine crisis by the end of this year. Some Ukrainian media figures even claimed that Zelenskyy would order a ceasefire on December 15th and announce his resignation in his New Year's speech. However, such predictions naturally have no guarantee, and the peace process may once again face setbacks, as it has done several times before.
Original: toutiao.com/article/7579937696479576582/
Statement: This article represents the personal views of the author.