Ukraine Warupdated 1h ago3 min read
Archive photo · 10 August 2026Putin Says Strategic Defeat Is Unrealistic, Demands Ukraine Cede Eastern Donbas Territory
“build on the success of last week's temporary cease-fire.”
“‘It is impossible to defeat Russia on the battlefield,’ Putin told the reporter on Oct.”
Photo: Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0 · Cropped for layout
This article is an automated aggregation of coverage from news outlets. Our editorials offer in-depth analysis curated by the NewsCord team.
Putin said inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia is unrealistic, signaling peace terms. Trilateral Russia-US-Ukraine talks are set for Abu Dhabi on November 10-11.
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Putin sets peace terms
Russian President Vladimir Putin told a television reporter that inflicting a "strategic defeat" on Russia is "unrealistic," and he said "historical Russia" includes all Ukrainian territories. Eugene Maikinkov, a Canadian-Latvian scholar of Russian history who lectures at the University of Swansea, said Putin was using history to make "a political statement and a political claim," and Mark Galeotti said Russia's leader was sending signals as "Everyone is moving into that kind of preparatory position of establishing their negotiating stances." Putin also insisted that Ukraine must turn over the last remaining 15 per cent of the territory of eastern Donbas, must demobilize its army, must have nothing to do with NATO, and must "de-Nazify," as the Kremlin puts it.
The CBC described the war on the ground as having largely bogged down into a stalemate after four and half years of combat, with Russia making only incremental territorial gains in Ukraine's Donbas region. The CBC said some Western estimates put Russia's military losses at as many as half a million deaths and up to 700,000 wounded, while Putin had not noticeably moved on his key demands to end the invasion.
Abu Dhabi talks resume
Dmitry Peskov, the spokesperson for the Russian presidency, said trilateral talks between Russia, the United States of America, and Ukraine will be held in Abu Dhabi from November 10 to 11.
Peskov also said the "special military operation (in Ukraine) continues" with wide-scale strikes planned and executed against Kyiv regime infrastructure, and he added that "Ukraine does not have personnel for mobilization."
Steve Witkoff, the US special envoy, announced that the United States would bring Ukrainian and Russian delegations together in Abu Dhabi on November 10-11 for working-level negotiations aimed at ending Moscow's war against Ukraine.
William Taylor, a former US ambassador to Ukraine under President George W. Bush, said the central question was whether Russia had changed its position on a cease-fire, asking, “Has Putin decided to agree to a cease-fire?”
Heather Conley, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told RFE/RL, “I don’t believe we can expect much from these technical meetings other than the fact they are restarting.”
Attacks and what is at stake
On November 2, Russia struck a school where humanitarian aid was being distributed in the Zaporizhzhya region, and Ukraine said the attack killed at least 29 people, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy calling it a "vile" attack. On November 3, Zelenskyy said Moscow launched 289 attack drones, 17 ballistic missiles, and 59 cruise missiles in the overnight attack, while Andriy Sybiha said at least 13 energy facilities in nine regions of Ukraine were hit overnight. Sybiha wrote that "Putin is deliberately targeting civilian energy, power and heating, hoping to create unbearable conditions for the people ahead of winter," and he added, "This is one of the direct definitions of genocide."
The Kremlin said the trilateral talks would be the first since negotiations stalled in February, and Peskov said the talks would be held next Tuesday and Wednesday. The Moscow Times said Vladimir Medinsky would continue to serve as chief negotiator for the Russian delegation, while Witkoff said the US would mediate working-level negotiations in Abu Dhabi to advance President Donald Trump's "mission to end the war."