Moscow Calls Captured Ukrainian Regions ‘Non-Negotiable’

The Kremlin has ruled out any negotiations over the status of five Ukrainian regions it claims to have annexed, despite not fully controlling four of them.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters Thursday that these territories are now “an inseparable part” of Russia, as they are enshrined in the country’s constitution.

“This is undeniable and non-negotiable,” he said during a phone briefing, as cited by the Russian Meduza media outlet.

This statement aligns with a previous one made on Feb. 26 by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that Moscow has made it clear that it will not settle for the current frontlines in Ukraine.

He reconfirmed that Russia seeks full control over the four Ukrainian regions it claimed via illegal referendums in 2022.

“Some say: ‘Okay, let’s leave the line of contact. This is Russian, and this is Ukrainian.’ This will not happen,” Lavrov said at a press conference, justifying Moscow’s claims by referencing the so-called “will of the people” expressed in the referendums.

Lavrov also dismissed the idea of Western troop deployments to Ukraine as part of security guarantees and insisted that deeper issues needed to be addressed.

He argued that many residents in these occupied territories “find it more convenient to speak Russian” and want to maintain their cultural traditions, stating that “such simple mechanical things as the deployment of [foreign] troops will not do – we need to talk about the root causes.”

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Russia first annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014 after a military operation and a referendum widely condemned as illegitimate. In September 2022, following its full-scale invasion, Moscow declared the annexation of four more regions: Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson.

Currently, Russian forces control most of Donetsk and Luhansk but only parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. Moscow also occupies part of Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region. Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces have seized hundreds of square kilometers of Russia’s Kursk region.

President Volodymyr Zelensky suggested the possibility of a territorial “exchange” with Moscow – an idea Russia has firmly rejected.