image source, Getty Images
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- Author, Drafting
- Author title, BBC News World
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Reading time: 4 minutes
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia would take more territory in Ukraine by force if Kiev and European politicians he called “little pigs” did not join U.S. proposals for a peace deal.
At the annual meeting of the Russian Defense Ministry, Putin assured that his country is making progress on all fronts and that it will achieve its goals through diplomacy or force, Reuters news agency reported.
“If the opposing party and its foreign supporters refuse to participate in substantive talks, Russia will achieve the liberation of its historic territories by military means,” he said.
US President Donald Trump’s administration is holding separate talks with Moscow and Kiev as well as European leaders on proposals to end the war in Ukraine.
However, no agreement has been reached so far.
Kiev and its European allies are concerned about Russian demands for territorial concessions in Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is calling for greater security guarantees following the occupation of Russia, which has sent tens of thousands of soldiers to Ukraine since 2022.
Russia, in turn, claims to control about 19% of Ukraine. These areas include the Crimean peninsula, which was annexed in 2014, most of the eastern Donbas region, large areas of Kherson and Zaporizhia, and areas in four other Ukrainian regions.
Russia insists that Crimea, Donbas, Kherson and Zaporizhia now belong to Russia.
However, Zelensky maintains that his country will never accept occupation and almost all countries consider these regions to be part of Ukraine.
image source, EPA
promote hysteria
European leaders are backing Kiev and warning that Russia should not be rewarded for the war in Ukraine after several years of fighting between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops in the Donbass region.
Putin said the administration of former US President Joe Biden tried to destroy Russia and that European politicians also pursued the same goal.
However, Europe’s leaders deny this accusation.
“They believed they would destroy and dismantle Russia in a short period of time,” he told the highest ranks of the army and defense ministry.
“And the European pigs immediately joined the work of the previous US administration, hoping to take advantage of our country’s collapse.”
He accused European politicians of stoking hysteria about a possible war with Russia and warned that Moscow could one day attack a country in the NATO military alliance.
“I have said it repeatedly: this is a lie, nonsense, pure nonsense about an imagined Russian threat to European countries. But this is done deliberately.”
image source, EPA
Some European leaders have accused Russia of having no real intention to participate in peace talks.
In a similar criticism of Europe, Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov said that European powers were trying to thwart attempts to end the war and that they are talking about a conflict between Russia and NATO in a few years.
“Such a policy creates real conditions for the continuation of military operations next year, 2026,” he said, as reported by Reuters.
Belousov assured that one of the tasks for 2026 is to increase the pace of the Russian offensive.
During his speech, he showed a slide showing that Russia would have spent 5.1% of its gross domestic product on war in 2025.
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