Russian President Vladimir Putin promised this Wednesday, December 17, the military conquest of what he considered “historical Russian territories” in Ukraine, in an allusion to the four Ukrainian regions annexed by Moscow, if diplomacy fails.
“If the adversary and its foreign sponsors refuse to talk about this, Russia will achieve the liberation of its historical territories through military means,” he said.cited by the Spanish news agency EFE.
Since invading Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow has declared the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporijia and Kherson annexed, after having done the same to Crimea in 2014.
Putin stressed that he preferred to recover the territories “and eliminate the original causes of the conflict with the help of diplomacy”, when speaking before the defense summit in Moscow.
Putin reaffirmed that the objectives of the “special military operation”, the official Russian designation for the conflict, remain in place, at a time when negotiations are taking place on a North American plan to try to end the war.
The statement leaves little room for Russia to accept Kiev’s demands, such as not ceding territory.
Moscow will achieve, “without any doubt, all the objectives” of the operation, assured the supreme commander of the Russian armed forcesalso cited by AFP.
Putin highlighted that Russian troops “liberated” more than 300 locations in Ukraine this year.
Independent experts such as the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) say Russian forces have captured less than 1% of Ukrainian territory since January.
Putin also spoke of the “high combat capacity” of Russian soldiers, despite Kiev counting on “the potential of member countries of the largest political-military bloc in the world, NATO”.
“The year that is now ending was an important stage in the fulfillment of the missions of the special military operation. The Russian army maintains the strategic initiative across the entire front line,” he stated.
He claimed that Russian troops “are crushing” elite Ukrainian units trained in Western training centers and equipped with modern foreign weaponry.
He also highlighted that Russia will continue to expand the security zone in the Ukrainian regions of Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Sumy.