“Moscow offered Kyiv to withdraw its troops from Donbas and not start fighting, but it chose to wage war instead,” – Putin said

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia had offered Ukraine the option of withdrawing its troops from Donbas and not starting hostilities, but Kyiv refused. He was likely referring to the events of February 2022, on the eve of the full-scale invasion, when Russia recognized the so-called “LNR” and “DNR.”

He spoke about this proposal to Kyiv in an interview with the TV channel India Today ahead of his visit to India scheduled for 4–5 December.

“We immediately said to Ukraine, to the Ukrainian troops: people don’t want to live with you, they went to a referendum, they voted for independence — withdraw your troops and there will be no military action. No, they prefer to fight,” Putin said.

He also stressed that Russia would in any case “liberate Donbas and Novorossiya” — “by military or other means.”

“It all comes down to this. Either we liberate these territories by military means, or Ukrainian troops will leave these territories and stop fighting there,” he added.

In the interview he also touched on talks with the United States and the peace plan for Ukraine. Putin said that his meeting in the Kremlin with U.S. representatives Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner was lengthy because the parties had to go through every point of the peace proposals, and he called the negotiations “very useful and very necessary.”

According to him, the 28 points of the American peace plan are still on the table and continue to be discussed, but Washington proposed breaking them into four separate packages.

“Those are exactly what’s being discussed. They’ve just broken these 28 — I think 27 — points into four packages and proposed that we discuss these four packages. But in essence, they’re the same [points],” the Russian president said, adding that Moscow does not agree with some provisions of the U.S. proposals.

The New York Times has also written about the four packages being discussed in parallel. According to its sources, one package concerns issues related to Ukraine’s sovereignty, such as limiting the size of its army in peacetime and the range of its missiles. Others cover territorial questions, economic cooperation, and broader European security issues.

Putin also said that Russia is not seeking a return to the G8. He noted that he had almost stopped attending G8 summits even before the full-scale war.

“I don’t really understand why the countries that make up the G7 call themselves the G7. What’s so ‘great’ there?” the Russian president asked.

At the same time, Russia’s return to the G8 is one of the points in the U.S. peace plan.

Earlier, Donald Trump said that the meeting between U.S. representatives and the Russian president “went well.” He also believes that the Ukrainian authorities should have agreed to peace already last winter.