Putin refuses territorial concessions, pushes maximalist ambitions - ISW

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported the information.

Vladimir Putin and senior Russian officials continue to reject U.S. negotiating terms and demand that Ukraine surrender territory that Russia does not occupy.

Putin stated in his February 27 address to the Federal Security Service (FSB) board that Russia will continue to strengthen FSB operations in Donbas and "Novorossiya." Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov similarly claimed on February 27 that Donbas and "Novorossiya" are an "integral" part of Russia.

Analysts note that Putin and other Russian officials have previously defined "Novorossiya" as all of eastern and southern Ukraine (including Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Odesa, and Mykolaiv regions), although its precise borders are disputed among Russian ultranationalists.

Putin has previously demanded that Ukraine surrender all of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhia regions even though Russian forces do not occupy large parts of the Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhia regions. Putin and other Russian officials have routinely indicated that they aim for territorial conquest beyond the administrative boundaries of these four illegally annexed regions.

“Renewed official Russian statements that the invented region of "Novorossiya" is part of Russia indicate that Putin maintains his maximalist territorial ambitions and is unwilling to offer territorial concessions,” the report states.

Russian forces currently occupy a small portion of the Kharkiv region and the Kinburn Spit in the Mykolaiv region and are attempting to advance to the Dnipropetrovsk region border, and the Kremlin may use the Russian occupation of limited territory in these areas as a false premise to demand that Ukraine surrender even more territory.

“ISW continues to assess that Putin remains uninterested in good-faith negotiations that require compromises and thinks that he can achieve his war objectives militarily in the medium- to long-term,” analysts noted.

On February 26, U.S. President Donald Trump stated that Russia would have to make concessions in peace negotiations and reiterated on February 27 that the United States will "certainly try to get as much [land] as [it] can back [for Ukraine]."

“Kremlin's guidelines to Russian state media about coverage of recent U.S.–Russian meetings indicate Vladimir Putin's determination to manipulate U.S. President Donald Trump and divide the West,” ISW emphasized.

• Russian spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stated that the Kremlin will not discuss the status of the temporarily occupied regions of Ukraine, which are “written in the Constitution of the Russian Federation.”