1 hour ago
Last Updated:December 04, 2025, 16:18 IST
Putin vows to seize Donbas if Ukraine does not withdraw. Ukraine refuses to cede territory. Putin met Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, calling US proposals on Ukraine useful.
Russia currently controls 19.2% of Ukraine, including Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, all of Luhansk, more than 80% of Donetsk, about 75% of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, and slivers of the Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions. (Reuters File)
Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed to take full control of Ukraine’s Donbas region by force if Ukrainian forces do not withdraw.
“Either we liberate these territories by force of arms, or Ukrainian troops leave these territories," Putin said in an interview with India Today before his visit to India.
Russia had sent its troops into Ukraine in February 2022 after eight years of fighting between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops in the Donbas, which is made up of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
In response to Putin’s demands, Ukraine has said it will not gift its territory to Russia that Moscow failed to win in the battle. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said Moscow should not be rewarded for a war it started.
According to Reuters, Russia currently controls 19.2% of Ukraine, including Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, all of Luhansk, more than 80% of Donetsk, about 75% of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, and slivers of the Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions.
Meanwhile, about 5,000 square km of Donetsk remains under Ukrainian control.
US President Donald Trump in his 28-point peace plan had proposed Ukraine to surrender the Donbas region. The plan included recognising Moscow-annexed Crimea and occupied eastern Ukraine as “de-facto" Russian, also requiring Kyiv to pull out from parts of the Donetsk region that it still controls, all clear red lines for Ukraine.
On Tuesday, Putin met US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Kremlin. Later, the President said Russia has accepted some of the US proposals on Ukraine and the talks should continue.
Russia’s RIA state news agency cited Putin as saying that his meeting with Witkoff and Kushner had been “very useful" and that it had been based on proposals he and President Donald Trump had discussed in Alaska in August.
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First Published:
December 04, 2025, 16:18 IST
News world Will Take Donbas Region Militarily If Ukraine Doesn't Give Up, Says Putin
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