Latest news with #territory
Japan Times
17 hours ago
- Politics
- Japan Times
Putin says 'the whole of Ukraine is ours' — in theory
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that in his view the whole of Ukraine was "ours" and cautioned that advancing Russian forces could take the Ukrainian city of Sumy as part of a bid to carve out a buffer zone along the border. Ukraine's foreign minister denounced the statements as evidence of Russian "disdain" for U.S. peace efforts and said Moscow was bent on seizing more territory and killing more Ukrainians. Russia currently controls about a fifth of Ukraine, including Crimea, more than 99% of the Luhansk region, over 70% of the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, and fragments of the Kharkiv, Sumy and Dnipropetrovsk regions. Asked about fresh Russian advances, Putin told the S.t Petersburg International Economic Forum that he considered Russians and Ukrainians to be one people and "in that sense the whole of Ukraine is ours." Kyiv and its Western allies say Moscow's claims to four Ukrainian regions and Crimea are illegal, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly rejected the notion that Russians and Ukrainians are one people. He has also said that Putin's terms for peace are akin to capitulation. Putin, who ordered troops into Ukraine in 2022 after eight years of fighting in eastern Ukraine, said on Friday he was not questioning Ukraine's independence or its people's striving for sovereignty, but he underscored that when Ukraine declared independence as the Soviet Union fell in 1991 it had also declared its neutrality. Putin said Moscow wanted Ukraine to accept the reality on the ground if there was to be a chance of peace — Russia's shorthand for the reality of Russia's control over a chunk of Ukrainian territory bigger than the U.S. state of Virginia. "We have a saying, or a parable," Putin said. "Where the foot of a Russian soldier steps, that is ours." Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, writing in English on the X social media platform, said: "Putin's cynical statements demonstrate complete disdain for U.S. peace efforts." "While the United States and the rest of the world have called for an immediate end to the killing, Russia's top war criminal discusses plans to seize more Ukrainian territory and kill more Ukrainians." Wherever a Russian soldier sets foot, "he brings along only death, destruction, and devastation," Sybiha said. Zelenskyy, in his nightly video address, said Russia had shown "openly and utterly cynically that they 'don't feel like' agreeing to a ceasefire. Russia wants to continue the war." Zelenskyy said commanders had discussed action in Ukraine's northern Sumy region and that Russia had "various plans and intentions, completely mad as always. We are holding them back and eliminating these killers, defending our Sumy region." Putin said Russian forces were carving out a buffer zone in the Sumy region in order to protect Russian territory. "Next is the city of Sumy, the regional center. We don't have the task of taking it, but in principle I don't rule it out," he said.
Reuters
08-06-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
Russia advances to east-central Ukrainian region amid row over dead soldiers
MOSCOW, June 8 (Reuters) - Russia said on Sunday its forces had advanced to the edge of the east-central Ukrainian region of Dnipropetrovsk amid a public row between Moscow and Kyiv over peace negotiations and the return of thousands of bodies of soldiers who fell in the war. Amid talk of peace, the war is stepping up with Russian forces grabbing more territory in Ukraine and Kyiv unfurling high-profile drone and sabotage attacks on Russia's nuclear-capable bomber fleet and, according to Moscow, on railways. Russia, which controls a little under one fifth of Ukrainian territory, has taken more than 190 square km (73 square miles) of the Sumy region of eastern Ukraine in less than a month, according to pro-Ukrainian open source maps. Now, according to the Russian defence ministry, units of the 90th Tank Division of the Central Grouping of Russian forces have reached the western frontier of Ukraine's Donetsk region and are attacking the adjacent Dnipropetrovsk region. There was no immediate comment from Kyiv on the Russian advance, though the pro-Ukrainian Deep State map showed Russian forces very close to the Dnipropetrovsk region, which had a population of more than 3 million before the war. Russia on Saturday accused Ukraine of delaying the swap of prisoners of war and return the bodies of 12,000 dead soldiers, though Ukraine denied those claims. Russia said on Sunday it was moving bodies towards the border. U.S. President Donald Trump, who says he wants an end to the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War Two, on Thursday likened it to a fight between young children and indicated that he might have to simply let the conflict play out. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that he did not think Ukraine's leaders wanted peace, after accusing them of ordering a bombing in Bryansk, western Russia that killed seven people and injured 115 a day before talks in Turkey. Ukraine, which has not commented on the attack on a Bryansk bridge, has similarly accused Moscow of not seriously seeking peace, citing as evidence Russian resistance to an immediate ceasefire. Russia is demanding international recognition of Crimea, a peninsula annexed from Ukraine by Russia in 2014, and four other regions of Ukraine that Moscow has claimed as its own territory. Ukraine would have to withdraw its forces from all of them. Russia controlled 113,273 square km, or 18.8%, of Ukrainian territory as of June 7, according to the Deep State map. That is an area bigger than the U.S. state of Virginia. The areas under Russian control include Crimea, more than 99% of the Luhansk region, over 70% of the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, all in the east or southeast, and fragments of the Kharkiv and Sumy regions in the northeast Putin told Trump on Wednesday that he would have to respond to Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia's bomber fleet and the bombings of the railways. The United States believes that Putin's threatened retaliation against Ukraine over its attacks has not happened yet in earnest and is likely to be a significant, multi-pronged strike, U.S. officials told Reuters. Russia also hit the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Friday evening and overnight with drones, missiles and guided bombs, killing at least four people and injuring more than 60, including a baby, local officials said on Saturday. Russia also said it had downed 61 Ukrainian drones overnight on Sunday in the Moscow region. Two major airports serving Moscow were closed temporarily.
Japan Times
03-06-2025
- General
- Japan Times
Russia sets out punitive terms at peace talks with Ukraine
Russia told Ukraine at peace talks on Monday that it would only agree to end the war if Kyiv gives up big new chunks of territory and accepts limits on the size of its army, according to a memorandum reported by Russian media. The terms, formally presented at negotiations in Istanbul, highlighted Moscow's refusal to compromise on its longstanding war goals despite calls by U.S. President Donald Trump to end the "bloodbath" in Ukraine. Ukraine has repeatedly rejected the Russian conditions as tantamount to surrender. Delegations from the warring sides met for barely an hour, for only the second such round of negotiations since March 2022. They agreed to exchange more prisoners of war — focusing on the youngest and most severely wounded — and return the bodies of 12,000 dead soldiers. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan described it as a great meeting and said he hoped to bring together Russia's Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy for a meeting in Turkey with Trump. But there was no breakthrough on a proposed ceasefire that Ukraine, its European allies and Washington have all urged Russia to accept. Moscow says it seeks a long-term settlement, not a pause in the war; Kyiv says Putin is not interested in peace. Trump has said the United States is ready to walk away from its mediation efforts unless the two sides demonstrate progress toward a deal. Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, who headed Kyiv's delegation, said Kyiv — which has drawn up its own peace roadmap — would review the Russian document, on which he offered no immediate comment. Ukraine has proposed holding more talks before the end of June but believes only a meeting between Zelenskyy and Putin can resolve the many issues of contention, Umerov said. Zelenskyy said Ukraine presented a list of 400 children it says have been abducted to Russia, but that the Russian delegation agreed to work on returning only 10 of them. Russia says the children were moved from war zones to protect them. Russian demands The Russian memorandum, which was published by the Interfax news agency, said a settlement of the war would require international recognition of Crimea — a peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014 — and four other regions of Ukraine that Moscow has claimed as its own territory. Ukraine would have to withdraw its forces from all of them. It restated Moscow's demands that Ukraine become a neutral country — ruling out membership of NATO — and that it protect the rights of Russian speakers, make Russian an official language and enact a legal ban on the glorification of Nazism. Ukraine rejects the Nazi charge as absurd and denies discriminating against Russian speakers. Russia also formalized its terms for any ceasefire en route to a peace settlement, presenting two options that both appeared to be nonstarters for Ukraine. Option one, according to the text, was for Ukraine to start a full military withdrawal from the Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. Of those, Russia fully controls the first but holds only about 70% of the rest. Medinsky delivers a statement to the press after a second round of direct talks between Ukrainian and Russian delegations in Istanbul on Monday. | AFP-JIJI Option two was a package that would require Ukraine to cease military redeployments and accept a halt to foreign provision of military aid, satellite communications and intelligence. Kyiv would also have to lift martial law and hold presidential and parliamentary elections within 100 days. Russian delegation head Vladimir Medinsky said Moscow had also suggested a "specific ceasefire of two to three days in certain sections of the front" so that the bodies of dead soldiers could be collected. According to a proposed roadmap drawn up by Ukraine, a copy of which was seen by Reuters, Kyiv wants no restrictions on its military strength after any peace deal, no international recognition of Russian sovereignty over parts of Ukraine taken by Moscow's forces, and reparations. Ukraine targets Russian bomber fleet The conflict has been heating up, with Russia launching its biggest drone attacks of the war and advancing on the battlefield in May at its fastest rate in six months. On Sunday, Ukraine said it launched 117 drones in an operation codenamed "Spider's Web" to attack Russian nuclear-capable long-range bomber planes at airfields in Siberia and the far north of the country. Satellite imagery suggested the attacks had caused substantial damage, although the two sides gave conflicting accounts of the extent of it. Western military analysts described the strikes, thousands of miles from the front lines, as one of the most audacious Ukrainian operations of the war. Russia's strategic bomber fleet forms part of the "triad" of forces — along with missiles launched from the ground or from submarines — that make up the country's nuclear arsenal, the biggest in the world. Faced with repeated warnings from Putin of Russia's nuclear might, the U.S. and its allies have been wary throughout the Ukraine conflict of the risk that it could spiral into World War III. A current U.S. administration official said Trump and the White House were not notified before the attack. A former administration official said Ukraine, for operational security reasons, regularly does not disclose to Washington its plans for such actions. A U.K. government official said the British government also was not told ahead of time. Zelenskyy said the operation, which involved drones concealed inside wooden sheds, had helped to restore partners' confidence that Ukraine is able to continue waging the war. "Ukraine says that we are not going to surrender and are not going to give in to any ultimatums," he told an online news briefing. "But we do not want to fight, we do not want to demonstrate our strength — we demonstrate it because the enemy does not want to stop."
CNA
02-06-2025
- Business
- CNA
Russia sets out punitive terms at peace talks with Ukraine
ISTANBUL: Russia told Ukraine at peace talks on Monday (Jun 2) that it would only agree to end the war if Kyiv gives up big new chunks of territory and accepts limits on the size of its army, according to a memorandum reported by Russian media. The terms, formally presented at negotiations in Istanbul, highlighted Moscow's refusal to compromise on its longstanding war goals despite calls by US President Donald Trump to end the "bloodbath" in Ukraine. Ukraine has repeatedly rejected the Russian conditions as tantamount to surrender. Delegations from the warring sides met for barely an hour, for only the second such round of negotiations since March 2022. They agreed to exchange more prisoners of war, focusing on the youngest and most severely wounded, and return the bodies of 12,000 dead soldiers. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan described it as a great meeting and said he hoped to bring together Russia's Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy for a meeting in Türkiye with Trump. But there was no breakthrough on a proposed ceasefire that Ukraine, its European allies and Washington have all urged Russia to accept. Moscow says it seeks a long-term settlement, not a pause in the war; Kyiv says Putin is not interested in peace. Trump has said the United States is ready to walk away from its mediation efforts unless the two sides demonstrate progress towards a deal. Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, who headed Kyiv's delegation, said Kyiv, which has drawn up its own peace roadmap, would review the Russian document, on which he offered no immediate comment. Ukraine has proposed holding more talks before the end of June, but believes only a meeting between Zelenskyy and Putin can resolve the many issues of contention, Umerov said. Zelenskyy said Ukraine presented a list of 400 children it says have been abducted to Russia, but that the Russian delegation agreed to work on returning only 10 of them. Russia says the children were moved from war zones to protect them. RUSSIAN DEMANDS The Russian memorandum, which was published by the Interfax news agency, said a settlement of the war would require international recognition of Crimea, a peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014, and four other regions of Ukraine that Moscow has claimed as its territory. Ukraine would have to withdraw its forces from all of them. It restated Moscow's demands that Ukraine become a neutral country - ruling out membership of NATO - and that it protect the rights of Russian speakers, make Russian an official language and enact a legal ban on glorification of Nazism. Ukraine rejects the Nazi charge as absurd and denies discriminating against Russian speakers. Russia also formalised its terms for any ceasefire en route to a peace settlement, presenting two options that both appeared to be non-starters for Ukraine. Option one, according to the text, was for Ukraine to start a full military withdrawal from the Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. Of those, Russia fully controls the first but holds only about 70 per cent of the rest. Option two was a package that would require Ukraine to cease military redeployments and accept a halt to foreign provision of military aid, satellite communications and intelligence. Kyiv would also have to lift martial law and hold presidential and parliamentary elections within 100 days. Russian delegation head Vladimir Medinsky said Moscow had also suggested a "specific ceasefire of two to three days in certain sections of the front" so that the bodies of dead soldiers could be collected. According to a proposed roadmap drawn up by Ukraine, a copy of which was seen by Reuters, Kyiv wants no restrictions on its military strength after any peace deal, no international recognition of Russian sovereignty over parts of Ukraine taken by Moscow's forces, and reparations. UKRAINE TARGETS RUSSIAN BOMBER FLEET The conflict has been heating up, with Russia launching its biggest drone attacks of the war and advancing on the battlefield in May at its fastest rate in six months. On Sunday, Ukraine said it launched 117 drones in an operation codenamed "Spider's Web" to attack Russian nuclear-capable long-range bomber planes at airfields in Siberia and the far north of the country. Satellite imagery suggested the attacks had caused substantial damage, although the two sides gave conflicting accounts of the extent of it. Western military analysts described the strikes, thousands of miles from the front lines, as one of the most audacious Ukrainian operations of the war. Russia's strategic bomber fleet forms part of the "triad" of forces, along with missiles launched from the ground or submarines, that make up the country's nuclear arsenal, the biggest in the world. Faced with repeated warnings from Putin of Russia's nuclear might, the US and its allies have been wary throughout the Ukraine conflict of the risk that it could spiral into World War Three. A current US administration official said Trump and the White House were not notified before the attack. A former administration official said Ukraine, for operational security reasons, regularly does not disclose to Washington its plans for such actions. A UK government official said the British government also was not told ahead of time. Zelenskyy said the operation, which involved drones concealed inside wooden sheds, had helped to restore partners' confidence that Ukraine is able to continue waging the war. "Ukraine says that we are not going to surrender and are not going to give in to any ultimatums," he told an online news briefing. "But we do not want to fight, we do not want to demonstrate our strength - we demonstrate it because the enemy does not want to stop."
Bloomberg
01-06-2025
- General
- Bloomberg
Philippine Defense Chief Rips China in Testy In-Person Exchange
Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro engaged in a testy back-and-forth with Chinese officials at a Singapore security forum on Sunday, accusing leaders in Beijing of grabbing territory in disputed waters and repressing their own people. During a panel at the Shangri-La Dialogue, two senior colonels in the People's Liberation Army directed questions at Teodoro, asking whether the Philippines would serve as a US proxy in Asia or adopt a friendlier approach toward China.
