Putin is convinced that this year Russian troops will conquer the entire territory of Donbas, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions. This will also be his basis in the conversation with Trump, Bloomberg writes.
Russian President Putin is convinced that his troops will be able to overcome Ukraine's defenses and completely conquer four Ukrainian regions - Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia - by the end of the year, Bloomberg reported, citing an informed source.
According to him, in his upcoming conversation with US President Trump, Putin will rely precisely on the belief that Russia will be able to fully take control of these four regions, whose annexation Moscow announced shortly after the start of the war.
In parallel, Bloomberg quotes analyst Ben Barry from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, who believes that the probability that Russia will be able to conquer these regions by the end of the year is low. If Ukraine's defenses are overcome, capturing the regions will be an easy task, but now such a scenario seems unlikely, Barry told the agency.
Putin defined the "result Russia needs" in the war
Russian President Putin himself, in an interview for the documentary "Russia. Kremlin. Putin. 25 years", said that Russia has "enough forces and means" to bring the war against Ukraine "to its logical conclusion with the result Russia needs". The fragment was published on Telegram.
"This result is the elimination of the causes that caused this crisis, the creation of conditions for long-term sustainable peace and ensuring the security of the Russian state, ensuring the interests of our people in those territories that we constantly talk about, where people live who consider the Russian language their native language and consider Russia their homeland," Putin said.
Negotiations between Putin and Trump
Bloomberg notes that Trump is counting on achieving a quick end to the war, while Putin, in turn, is not showing any signs of readiness to stop the fighting. According to Bloomberg's source, the Russian president is calm about US threats to tighten sanctions against Russia.
Trump has previously made it clear that he is ready to tighten restrictions on Russia if Putin does not agree to a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine. At the same time, the agency notes that Russia has never declared a ceasefire, and the new package of US sanctions has never been adopted.