Putin says Russia will fight on if Ukraine talks don’t lead to agreements

Putin mixed a readiness to engage with the U.S. over a possible peace plan with several warnings that Russia was prepared to fight on if necessary and take more of Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that outline draft peace proposals discussed by the United States and Ukraine could become the basis of future agreements to end the conflict in Ukraine, but that if not Russia would fight on.

Yet Putin also called the Ukrainian leadership “illegitimate” and said it was senseless to sign any documents with them, casting further doubt on a final peace treaty.

“We need to sit down and discuss this seriously,” Putin told reporters at the end of a three-day visit to Kyrgyzstan. “Every word matters.”

U.S. President Donald Trump has long said he wants to end the war in Ukraine, Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War Two, but his efforts so far, including a summit with Putin in Alaska in August, have not brought peace.

A leaked 28-point U.S. peace plan emerged last week, spooking Ukrainian and European officials who felt it bowed to Moscow’s key demands on NATO, Moscow’s control of a fifth of Ukraine and restrictions on Ukraine’s army.

European powers then gave their counter-proposal for peace and at talks in Geneva, the U.S. and Ukraine said they had created an “updated and refined peace framework” to end the war.

Putin, speaking in Bishkek after a summit with the leaders of a grouping of former Soviet republics, told reporters that the discussions so far were not about a draft agreement of any kind but about sets of issues.

He said that in Geneva, the U.S. and Ukraine had decided to divide up the 28 points into four separate components – and that a copy had been transmitted to Moscow.