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He reiterated his view that Russia has the initiative on the battlefield and the fighting will end only when Ukrainian troops withdraw from the attacked territories...
President Vladimir Putin has doubled down on his key demands to end the war in Ukraine, declaring that Russia will lay down its arms only if Kiev's troops withdraw from territory claimed by Moscow.
Putin has long sought legal recognition of Ukrainian territories that Russia has forcibly occupied. They include the Crimean peninsula, which it illegally annexed in 2014, and the Donbass, consisting of Luhansk and Donetsk, most of which Moscow now occupies.
For Kiev, which has ruled out giving up the parts of Donbas it still holds, Russia’s reward for its aggression is unacceptable. Speaking to reporters during a trip to Kyrgyzstan, Putin accused Kiev of wanting to fight “to the last Ukrainian,” which he said Russia was “in principle” also willing to do.
He reiterated his view that Russia has the initiative on the battlefield and the fighting will end only when Ukrainian troops withdraw from the attacked territories.
"If they don't withdraw, we will achieve this by force of arms ," he said.
However, Russia's slow advances in eastern Ukraine have come at a significant cost in manpower. According to the US-based Institute for the Study of War, at this rate it would take Moscow almost another two years to conquer the rest of the Donetsk region.
Thursday's comments were the first time Putin addressed last week's tense diplomatic moves, which saw the US and Ukraine hold intensive discussions on a peace plan reportedly drawn up in October by US and Russian officials.
The plan, which was heavily biased towards Moscow's demands, was later revised. However, it is believed to not address the issue of occupied territories, which, along with security guarantees for Ukraine, is the biggest point of disagreement between Moscow and Kiev.
Putin said a new draft of the plan had been shown to Russia and that it could become the "basis" for a future agreement to end the war.
However, he added that it was "absolutely necessary" to discuss "some specific points that need to be expressed in diplomatic language."
Asked about the possibility of Crimea and Donbas being recognized as under Russia's de facto control, but not legally, Putin said that was the goal.
"This is the purpose of our discussion with our American counterparts ," he said.
Putin also dismissed warnings from European leaders that Russia could attack the European continent within the next few decades.
"This seems ridiculous to us, really ," he said.
The White House and Donald Trump have seemed optimistic about the recent diplomatic push for peace talks, but Europeans have consistently expressed their skepticism about whether Putin truly intended to end the war.
On Wednesday, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen accused Russia of supporting a post-World War II mentality and of seeing the European continent as a "sphere of influence" in which sovereign nations could be "divided."
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