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Putin is only prepared to return to the negotiating table once the Donbas has been seized — Bloomberg

Putin is only prepared to return to the negotiating table once the Donbas has been seized — Bloomberg

22 July 2026, 15:46

Putin is only prepared to return to the negotiating table once the Donbas has been seized — Bloomberg — Vladimir Putin

The Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, is prepared to continue peace talks only once the Russian Federation has seized the whole of Donbas. The Russian Ministry of Defence is assuring him that this can be achieved by 2026, but rank-and-file soldiers disagree.

Bloomberg reports this, citing sources close to the Kremlin.

According to the publication’s sources, Russia no longer intends to cede any territory as part of any potential agreement — it wants to turn parts of the Sumy and Kharkiv regions into ‘buffer zones’.

Russia is thus refusing to make concessions in light of the increasingly pro-Ukrainian statements from Donald Trump’s administration — in particular, Trump previously supported the adoption of a bill on sanctions against Russia, which was initiated by the late Senator Lindsey Graham.

Furthermore, sources in the Kremlin say that Russia is now only prepared to return to negotiations once it has seized the whole of Donbas. The Russian Ministry of Defence is telling Putin that they will be able to achieve this by the end of 2026, but many in the Russian armed forces consider this unrealistic and believe it may not happen until 2027.

In Russia, it is believed that the US is undermining the ‘Anchorage Agreements’ through its support for Ukraine — Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that, in fact, no agreements were actually concluded in Anchorage; rather, a ‘proposal was merely put forward’ there.

In response, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused the US of failing to fulfil its part of the ‘agreement’ and even suggested that the summit in Alaska was held to ‘buy time to rearm Kyiv’, as reported by Russian propagandists.

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