Utopia Talk / Politics / Gimme mooooooar!

LazyCommunist rank

Wed Jul 22 17:33:21 You will learn the hard way! https://ww...ied-land-in-ukraine-blaming-us Kremlin Hardens Demands on Occupied Land in Ukraine, Blaming US By Bloomberg News July 22, 2026 Russia is no longer willing to return some occupied territories to Ukraine as part of any deal to end the war and plans to retain them as buffer zones, according to people close to the Kremlin. Russian President Vladimir Putin remains committed to taking full control of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region by force and will now retain areas of Sumy and Kharkiv regions near the border with Russia as buffer zones, three people said, asking not to be identified discussing sensitive issues. Putin has abandoned territorial concessions because Russia views increasingly confrontational statements from the US as evidence that informal understandings reached at his Alaska summit with President Donald Trump have collapsed, the people said. While the US insists no deal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine was reached at the summit last August, Kremlin officials have repeatedly asserted that a package of undertakings existed under a so-called “spirit of Anchorage” agreement between Putin and Trump. They included pressing Ukraine to surrender territory in its eastern Donetsk region in return for Russia handing back occupied areas of the northern Sumy and northeastern Kharkiv regions. The Kremlin has hardened its position amid escalating Ukrainian strikes deep inside Russia, including on Moscow, that have damaged oil refineries and sparked a nationwide fuel shortage. Trump also backed a new sanctions bill championed by the late Senator Lindsey Graham that would target the top five purchasers of Russian oil and gas with tariff rates of as much as 100%. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov didn’t respond to a request for comment. The summit between Trump and Putin was their longest face-to-face meeting and took place amid high expectations for a breakthrough to end the war. In the end, Putin left Anchorage without agreeing to a ceasefire to allow for peace talks, while Trump said it would be up to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to make a deal. US-led negotiations between Russia and Ukraine on a peace deal have stalled since February as the Trump administration focused on the war with Iran. Zelenskyy challenged Putin in an open letter in June to meet for direct peace talks to end the war that’s now in its fifth year. Putin rejected that offer and said his army should “keep working.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio are attending a meeting of counterparts from the Association of South East Asian Nations in the Philippines. Rubio said Monday he’s “open” to speaking with Lavrov in Manila, though neither side has confirmed a meeting so far. Russia has stepped up drone and missile attacks on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities in recent weeks. Intense fighting continues in the Donetsk region centered around Konstiantynivka, a strategic logistics hub whose capture by Russia would open the way toward Ukraine’s main defensive strongholds of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. Putin wants Ukraine to surrender control of territory in Donetsk that his forces have failed to take in fighting since 2014. Ukraine rejects that demand and has proposed a halt to the war along the existing front lines. Russia is prepared to return to negotiations only after Putin has achieved the objective of taking Donetsk, according to two of the people close to the Kremlin. Russia’s Defense Ministry has assured the president it can establish full control of the area by the end of the year, one person said. Many in Russia’s military consider that timetable unrealistic and believe that it will only be able to take control of Donetsk region during 2027, according to a person close to the Defense Ministry in Moscow. Rubio told reporters June 25 that “there was a proposal in Alaska, but there was no agreement in Alaska” on a deal to end the war. “If there had been an agreement, we would have had an end to the war,” he said. Lavrov said in a statement next day that Putin had responded in Alaska to proposals previously brought to Moscow by Trump envoy Steve Witkoff. “If one party, in this case the United States, puts forward its proposals for a settlement — for an approach to resolving this crisis — and the other party expresses concurrence with these proposals, then to state that no agreement was reached appears, to put it mildly, somewhat inelegant,” Lavrov said.

show deleted posts

Your Name:
Your Password:
Your Message: