“Ukrainian troops have to be utterly withdrawn from the Donetsk Individuals’s Republic, the Lugansk Individuals’s Republic, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia areas,” Putin stated in a televised deal with to Russian diplomats in Moscow.
Russia claimed to have annexed the 4 areas in 2022, regardless of not having full management over any of them.
The regional capitals of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia are nonetheless in Ukrainian arms – that means Putin is demanding Ukraine cede swathes of territory underneath its management as a precondition for negotiations.
“As quickly as Kyiv says it’s prepared to do that and begins actually withdrawing troops and formally renounces plans to hitch NATO, we’ll instantly, actually that very minute, stop fireplace and start talks,” Putin stated.
Russia was in search of “Ukraine’s impartial, non-aligned, non-nuclear standing, its demilitarisation and de-Nazification,” he added.
