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‘If not by negotiation then by military means, this territory will come under the full control of the Russian federation’ top foreign policy aid Ushakov said about the Donbas region
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A ceasefire with Ukraine is conditional upon the country’s complete withdrawal from the Donbas region, a top Kremlin aide said on Friday in the country’s firmest demand on territory yet.
As peace negotiations have slowly continued, territory has remained a sticking point, with Russia insisting it has a historical and cultural right to the Donbas region – a key strategic location for both countries.
“If not by negotiation, then by military means, this territory will come under the full control of the Russian Federation,” President Vladimir Putin’s top foreign policy advisor Yuri Ushakov said, according to Russian newspaper Kommersant. “Everything else will depend entirely on that.”
He said that Russia’s national guard could be deployed to the Donbas under a peace plan and its army absent from parts of the region under Ukrainian control.
The US will send a representative to participate in talks in Europe on Ukraine this weekend, Donald Trump has said, while warning that he doesn’t want to waste “a lot of time”.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump said: “We’ll be attending the meeting on Saturday in Europe if we think there’s a good chance. And we don’t want to waste a lot of time if we think it’s negative.”
US army secretary Dan Driscoll has reportedly been sidelined from peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, according to reports.
Driscoll has played a leading role in negotiations but has been “reeled in”, sources told the Telegraph.
“He was seen to be exerting himself a bit too much, and he had his hand slapped,” one person said, suggesting that US secretary of war, Pete Hegseth, who has been at the centre of several controversies himself, was behind the move.
A peace proposal presented as part of US-mediated discussions on the Russia-Ukraine conflict could see Ukraine slated to join the European Union by 1 January 2027, according to the Financial Times.
The proposal is being negotiated between US and Ukrainian officials with the help of the EU, according to sources briefed with the document’s contents.
President Donald Trump has warned that the Ukraine conflict could lead to World War Three, in a dire warning to reporters at the White House on Thursday.
“Things like this end up in third world wars. And I told that the other day, I said, ‘You know, everybody keeps playing games like this, you’ll end up in a third world war.’ And we don’t want to see that happen,” he said.
Ukraine has regained parts of the northeastern town of Kupiansk and several surrounding villages, according to Ukraine’s military commander.
In a statement on Friday, Ihor Obolienskyi commander of the Khartiia Corps of the National Guard, said the operation consisted of the encircling of Russian troops.
“Today, we can say that the Russians in the city are completely cut off. For a long time, they couldn’t understand what was happening. But now they know they are surrounded,” he said.
In November, Russia said it had taken full control of Kupiansk, a claim that Ukraine denied.
A decision on frozen Russian assets is expected to be announced at a EU summit on Friday, according to Reuters.
Germany has said it sees no alternative to a reparations loan to Ukraine using the 210 billion euros worth of assets and will shoulder 50 billion in guarantees.
A source added that a lack of agreement would “send a disastrous signal to Ukraine”.
Berlin has summoned Russia’s ambassador over allegations of “hybrid attacks”, a German foreign ministry spokesperson said on Friday.
They include disinformation campaigns, espionage, cyberattacks and attempted sabotage.
“This morning we therefore summoned the Russian ambassador to the foreign office and made it clear that we are monitoring Russia’s actions very closely and will take action against them,” the spokesperson said.
Russia has denied it has engaged in hybrid warfare.
In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hold a meeting in Ashgabat on Friday.
Ukraine’s military has said it has hit two Russian ships carrying military equipment and weapons in the Caspian Sea.
The vessels named as the Composer Rakhmaninoff and the Askar-Sarydzha were sanctioned by the US for carrying military cargo between Iran and Russia, according to a statement by Ukraine’s special forces on Telegram on Friday.
The Kremlin has insisted that the whole of the Donbas region belongs to Russia, in response to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s statement that a referendum would need to take place to agree any territorial concessions.
It said a ceasefire would only be possible after withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the Donbas region.
US negotiators foresee Ukrainian forces withdrawing from the Donetsk region, with the compromise being that Russian forces do not enter that territory, Mr Zelensky said. He stressed that the decision would have to be determined by a public vote.
The UK’s armed forces minister has said that the UK is “rapidly developing” plans for the possible outbreak of war, according to Sky News.
”The shadow of war is knocking on Europe’s door once more,” Al Carns said during a visit to RAF Wyton on Thursday. “That’s the reality. We’ve got to be prepared to deter it.”
He said that hostile intelligence activity including spying, hacking and physical threats against armed forces and the Ministry of Defence had increased by more than 50 per cent in the last year.
The main suspects are Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.
A new defence counter-intelligence unit is being launched to counter the operations. Various military intelligence branches are joining forces to streamline their response to hostilities.
“There’s a whole load of work going on now between us [Ministry of Defence], the Cabinet Office, and the whole of society approach, and what conflict means, and what everybody’s role in society means if we were to go to war and the build up to war,” he said.
”Collectively, everybody – what is their role if we get caught in an existential crisis, and what do they need to be aware they need to do and what they can’t do, and how do we mobilise the nation to support a military endeavour?
“Not just about deploying the military, but actually about protecting every inch of our own territory. That work is ongoing now, it’s rapidly developing. We’ve got to move as fast as we can to make sure that’s shored up.”
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