On Thursday, the Kremlin excluded any negotiations on the statute of five regions in the east and south of Ukraine, which Russia formally annexed, but four of them do not fully control. The territories that became the subjects of the Russian Federation and are registered in its Constitution are “an integral part of our country”, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday. AFP informed about it, saying that According to Peskov, this is a “undeniable and inseparable” fact, He writes TASR.
Peskov’s words are his reaction to the question of whether the promise of US President Donald Trump “to return to Ukraine as many territories” complicates negotiations on the end of the Russian-Ukrainian war.
The Kremlin spokesman assumes that if the political will of Russia and the United States is preserved, it will be possible to “go through the Ukrainian settlement process”. According to Peskov, the war in Ukraine is too complicated and no one expects “easy and fast” solutions. In this context, Peskov picked up that Trump’s administration is willing to listen to others “which distinguishes” from the previous government of Democrat Joe Biden.
Trump said on Wednesday that his government would strive to reach the most advantageous agreement for Ukraine to get as many territories as possible. At the same time, he acknowledged that it would be difficult. In his words, Ukraine should forget to enter NATO. Russia annexed the Ukrainian Peninsula of Crimea in 2014. It was preceded by a short military operation and a referendum that Kiev and Western powers criticize as illegitimate.
After launching the offensive of the Russian army Moscow in September 2022 announced an annexation of four Ukrainian regions – Donetsk, Luhanská, Zaporožská and Cherson. Although Russian troops have control of the majority of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, they only control parts of the territory in the Zaporozka and Kersonian regions. Moscow also occupies part of the Kharkov region in the northeast of Ukraine.
After Ukraine occupied hundreds of square kilometers of the Kursk region in the west of the European part of the Russian Federation last August, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj established the possibility of “exchange” of territories with Russia, but Moscow excluded.
In recent months, Russian troops have been progressing to Eastern Ukraine and have conquered part of the territory occupied by Ukrainian soldiers. The Russian Defense Ministry said on Friday that Russian soldiers conquered the village of Nikani near the Ukrainians controlled by the Russian city of Sudža.
