Putin insists Donbas will become Russian as EU proposes giving frozen assets to Ukraine

HEADLINES

• Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted that Russia will take full control of Ukraine's Donbas region by force unless Ukrainian forces withdraw. READ MORE BELOW

• The European Commission has proposed an unprecedented use of frozen Russian assets or international borrowing to raise money for Ukraine to cover its struggling military and basic services. READ MORE BELOW

• Ukrainian troops have held their positions in the northern part of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine, according to Kyiv's top military commander Oleksandr Syrskyi.

• Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday that Ukrainian attacks on oil tankers in the Black Sea and on the Caspian Pipeline Consortium terminal in Novorossiysk were aimed at disrupting peace talks on Ukraine.

• Discussions in Beijing between Chinese President Xi Jinping and French President Emmanuel Macron have included talks on the Ukraine-Russia conflict as the European Union seeks China's help in bringing it to an end.

• Tens of thousands of people were left without power and heating in southern Ukraine after Russian night-time attacks on the frontline city of Kherson and Ukraine's largest seaport, Odesa, local authorities and the energy company said on Thursday.

• Russia's Defense Ministry said that its forces had struck Ukrainian transport and infrastructure facilities, state news agency TASS reported.

• Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that European countries should get involved in a Ukrainian peace settlement, rather than hindering it, TASS reported.

• Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, said on Thursday that if the European Union takes frozen Russian assets, then it may be considered by Moscow as tantamount to an act justifying war.

• Türkiye is telling Russia, Ukraine, and all other parties to keep energy infrastructure out of their conflict and wants energy flows to continue uninterrupted, Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said after a series of attacks off Türkiye's Black Sea coast.

• A White House official said US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner would meet with Ukrainian officials in Miami on Thursday.

• Russia's RIA state news agency cited Putin as saying that his meeting with Witkoff and Kushner had been "very useful".

Putin says Russia will take all of Ukraine's Donbas region militarily or otherwise

President Vladimir Putin said in an interview published on Thursday that Russia would take full control of Ukraine's Donbas region by force unless Ukrainian forces withdraw, something Kyiv has flatly rejected.

Putin sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022 after eight years of fighting between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops in the Donbas, which is made up of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

"Either we liberate these territories by force of arms, or Ukrainian troops leave these territories," Putin told India Today ahead of a visit to New Delhi, according to a clip shown on Russian state television.

Ukraine says it does not want to gift Russia its own territory that Moscow has failed to win on the battlefield, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Moscow should not be rewarded for a conflict that it started.

Russia currently controls 19.2 percent of Ukraine, including Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, all of Luhansk, more than 80 percent of Donetsk, about 75 percent of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, and slivers of the Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions.

About 5,000 square km (1,900 square miles) of Donetsk remains under Ukrainian control.

EU proposes using frozen Russian assets or borrowing to fund Ukraine

The European Commission proposed on Wednesday an unprecedented use of frozen Russian assets or international borrowing to raise 90 billion euros ($105 billion) for Ukraine to cover its struggling military and basic services in its conflict with Russia.

The European Union's executive body declared that it favors a "reparations loan" using Russian state assets immobilized in the EU due to the Russian military campaign in Ukraine.

But Belgium, which holds most of the assets and has voiced a range of legal concerns, is not convinced by the proposal.

"We are proposing to cover two-thirds of Ukraine's financing needs for the next two years. That's 90 billion euros. The remainder would be for international partners to cover," Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told reporters.

She said the proposal to EU member states had taken into account almost all the concerns raised by Belgium, whose Brussels-based financial institution Euroclear is the main holder of the assets.

The Belgian government does not "share that assessment", a senior official told Reuters. "Belgium cannot accept being asked to bear the risks of such an operation alone."

The proposal would now also cover other financial institutions in the EU that hold Russian assets, von der Leyen said. EU officials said France, Germany, Sweden and Cyprus also held such assets.

Russia has warned the EU and Belgium against using its assets, which it says would be an act of theft. The Commission says the scheme does not amount to confiscation as the money would be in the form of a loan - although Ukraine would only have to redeem it if Russia pays reparations.

The Commission said the EU could proceed with the scheme if 15 out of 27 member countries, representing at least 65 percent of the bloc's population, voted in favor.

EU officials said this would also ensure Russia's sanctioned assets remain immobilized, an essential part of the reparations loans, under EU law allowing financial assistance in instances of "severe difficulties".

The other option - borrowing on international markets using the EU budget - would also normally require unanimity among EU countries - a potentially difficult hurdle as Hungary's Russia-friendly government has opposed previous funding for Ukraine.

The issue is likely to come to a head at an EU leaders summit on December 18, when the Commission said it hoped to clinch a firm commitment by member states.

Belgium has demanded that other EU countries guarantee they will cover all legal costs arising from any Russian lawsuits against the scheme. It also wants them to guarantee they would help provide money quickly to pay Russia back if a court ever ruled Moscow must be refunded.