President Vladimir Putin has doubled down on his core demands for ending the war in Ukraine, stating that Russia will lay down arms only if Kyiv's troops withdraw from territory claimed by Moscow.
Putin has long pushed for legal recognition of the Ukrainian territories Russia has seized by force.
They include the Crimean peninsula, which it illegally annexed in 2014, and the Donbas, made up of Luhansk and Donetsk, which Moscow now occupies for the most part.
For Kyiv, which has ruled out relinquishing the parts of the Donbas it still holds, rewarding Russia for its aggression is a non-starter.
Speaking to reporters during a trip to Kyrgyzstan, Putin repeated his view that Russia has the initiative on the battlefield and the fighting would only end when Ukrainian troops withdrew from the embattled territories.
