The Kremlin said on Monday that the issue of territory remained fundamental to Russia when it came to getting a deal to end the fighting in Ukraine.
– President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said that Russia will take all of Ukraine’s Donbas region – of which Moscow’s forces currently control 90% – by force unless Kyiv gives it up in a peace deal.
– “It’s no secret that this is our consistent position, the position of our president, that the territorial issue, which is part of the Anchorage formula, is of fundamental importance to the Russian side,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
– The “Anchorage formula” refers to what Russia says was agreed between U.S. President Donald Trump and Putin at a summit in Alaska last August.
– That purported agreement, envisages Ukraine handing Russia control of all of Donbas and freezing the front lines elsewhere in Ukraine’s east and south as a condition of any future peace deal.
– Kyiv has repeatedly said that it will not gift Russia territory which Moscow has failed to win on the battlefield.
– Peskov said that Moscow positively assessed what he called the “constructive talks” with Ukraine in Abu Dhabi.
– The talks, brokered by the United States, ended without a deal, but with more talks are expected next weekend.