New Delhi, India – December 5, 2025 – Russian President Vladimir Putin landed in New Delhi on Thursday for a two-day state visit with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but the war in Ukraine dominated headlines. In a hard-hitting interview with India Today released just before his arrival, Putin declared that Moscow will take complete control of the Donbas region “by military or other means,” sending a clear message that Russia’s territorial demands remain non-negotiable even as Ukrainian officials fly to the United States for another round of peace negotiations.
“We will liberate Donbas and Novorossiya in any case,” Putin said, reviving the imperial-era term “Novorossiya” to describe not only the Donetsk and Luhansk regions but also parts of southern Ukraine that Russia has claimed since 2022. When asked what victory looks like, he replied bluntly: “We will finish it when we achieve the goals set at the beginning of the special military operation, when we free these territories.”
The remarks came less than 72 hours after Putin hosted President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner for a five-hour meeting in the Kremlin. Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov described the talks as “detailed and useful,” but stressed that Moscow still disagrees with key parts of the latest American peace proposal. Putin repeated his long-standing demand that Ukrainian forces withdraw completely from Donbas and halt all military operations there before any meaningful ceasefire can take hold.
President Trump called the Moscow meeting “very good” and said both sides would need to keep working together for a breakthrough. However, neither Washington nor Moscow has disclosed concrete progress, and the Kremlin has been deliberately vague about which elements of the revised US plan are acceptable.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Rustem Umerov and the Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Andrii Hnatov, arrived in Miami on Thursday evening to meet the same American team. President Volodymyr Zelensky said their task is simple: to get “full information” on exactly what Russia told the US delegation and to understand “what new excuses Putin has invented to keep the war going.”
This latest round follows a series of closed-door meetings in Florida over the past ten days, which US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has described as “productive” with “additional progress.” The original 28-point American framework that leaked last month, widely criticized in Europe and Kyiv as too favourable to Russia, has reportedly been trimmed and adjusted, but the core issue of territorial concessions remains the biggest obstacle.
On the ground, Russian forces continue to grind forward in Donetsk, capturing small villages almost daily at a heavy cost in lives and equipment. Independent analysts estimate that, at the current pace, it could still take Moscow until 2027 or later to seize the remaining Ukrainian-held parts of the region, even if Kyiv receives no further Western weapons. The frontline around the key logistics hub of Pokrovsk remains bitterly contested, with neither side achieving a decisive breakthrough.
Ukrainian officials have consistently rejected any deal that would formally cede territory occupied since 2022, while European leaders have privately expressed alarm at suggestions in the leaked US document that Ukraine should accept permanent loss of Donbas and constitutional neutrality in exchange for a ceasefire.
As Putin was warmly greeted by Modi on the tarmac in New Delhi, with the two leaders expected to discuss energy, defense cooperation, and BRICS expansion, the stark contrast between diplomatic handshakes and battlefield reality was unmistakable. For the millions living in Ukraine’s war zone and the tens of thousands of soldiers still fighting in Donbas, Putin’s latest statement served as a grim reminder that, despite the flurry of transatlantic flights and closed-door meetings, Russia’s war aims have not softened, and peace remains as distant as ever.
