Top Russian officials made a series of threatening statements and false claims about Ukraine on 14 January.
“It’s possible that in the coming year, Ukraine might cease to exist altogether,” Putin’s aide Nikolai Patrushev said in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda.
In the same interview, Patrushev claims the partially occupied Ukrainian regions now belong to Russia.
“It’s important that the world recognizes the incorporation of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR), Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR), Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts, Republic of Crimea, and Sevastopol into the Russian Federation,” he insists.
He says these regions joined Russia “following citizens’ expression of will in accordance with international law” – referring to the 2022 referendums that the UN and Western nations have declared illegal.
The same day, two other top officials joined in denying Ukraine’s sovereignty. Former Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin, now a senator representing the occupied part of Zaporizhzhia Oblast, defined Russia’s goal of “denazification” in an interview with Gazeta.Ru. He called it “the liquidation of those who instill a misanthropic Russophobic spirit” in people. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke of “the country that is now called Ukraine.”
Regarding potential peace negotiations, Patrushev demands talks only between Russia and the United States “without the participation of other Western countries.” He dismisses the European Union, pointing specifically to Hungary and Slovakia, whose leaders, Viktor Orbán and Robert Fico, maintain close ties with Putin. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) notes that this reflects Russia’s strategy to exclude both European nations and Ukraine from negotiations about Ukraine’s future.
Patrushev also claimed Trump’s approach would differ from Biden’s, saying Ukraine was “an absolute priority” for Biden but wouldn’t maintain this status under Trump, who he described as more focused on China.
According to ISW, these statements are part of Russia’s broader campaign to undermine Western support for Ukraine. Russia’s demands – including control of partially occupied territories and preventing Ukraine from joining NATO – remain unchanged since Putin’s initial goals in February 2022.
Related:
- ISW: Russian officials emphasize social spending but increase 2025 defense budget to $ 140 billion
- Russian occupation authorities offer money to pensioners in occupied Ukraine for votes in Russian elections
- ISW: Putin maintains maximalist demands for Ukraine isolation and NATO withdrawal
- Putin’s victory in Ukraine would spell “existential danger” to US, Trump’s ex-OSCE envoy warns
- ISW: Putin’s territorial demands make peace negotiations unsustainable
