February 17, 2025

Athens News

News in English from Greece

Reuters: Putin will not give up conquered territories (video)


Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to discuss a ceasefire with Trump, but will not return the territory.

How writes Reuters agency, citing five sources familiar with the Kremlin’s opinion, he open to discussion, but excludes de-occupation and insists on Ukraine's renunciation of NATO.

In a report on what Putin would agree to in a Trump-brokered deal, five current and former officials said: The Kremlin may agree to freeze the conflict along the front line. According to three of them, who spoke on condition of anonymity, there is room for negotiations over the exact distribution of the four eastern regions – Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye and Kherson. Moscow claims these four regions are part of Russia.

At the same time, two Russian officials said that a discussion is possible regarding the withdrawal of troops from relatively small areas of territory in the Kharkov and Nikolaev regions.

Two sources said US President Joe Biden's decision to allow Ukraine to fire US ATACMS missiles deep into Russia could complicate and delay any settlement and strengthen Moscow's demands. If a ceasefire is not agreed upon, they said, then Russia will continue to fight. Kremlin Speaker Dmitry Peskov said:

“Putin has already said that there is no way to freeze the conflict. And allowing missile strikes is a very dangerous escalation on the part of the United States.”

It is worth recalling that in total Russia has captured more than 110,000 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory. Ukraine owns about 650 square kilometers of the Kursk region of Russia.

At home, sources say, Putin may present the ceasefire agreement, which sees Russia holding much of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, as a victory while also preserving the land bridge to Crimea. The future of Crimea itself is non-negotiable, all Russian officials said.

One of them, a senior source familiar with high-level discussions in the Kremlin, said that The West will have to accept the “hard truth” that all the support it gave Ukraine could not prevent Russia from winning the war.



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