Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Wednesday that Russia would use all military means at its disposal to conquer Ukrainian lands if a peace deal is not reached.
Speaking to an audience of senior military officers during an annual meeting, Putin gave one of his most maximalist speeches in recent months, mocking European leaders and reaffirming his willingness to continue the war as long as it would take.
“The goals of the special military operation will undoubtedly be achieved,” Putin said. “We would prefer to accomplish this and address the root causes of the conflict through diplomacy. [However,] if the opposing side and its foreign patrons refuse to have a substantive discussion, Russia will achieve the liberation of its historic lands by military means.”
The Russian president has repeatedly stressed that Russia considers all of Ukraine part of its historical lands. However, different parts are viewed with greater value, with the historically Russian-speaking Donbas being held as more vital than the far west of the country, which was only ruled by Moscow briefly, in contrast to the center and east of the country. His comments leave some ambiguity as to which “historic lands” he’s referring to.
Putin’s speech also included some of his most outwardly degrading comments directed at European leaders and the ruling elite, calling them a term most commonly translated as “piglets.”
“Everyone thought that in a short amount of time they could destroy Russia,” Putin said. “And the European piglets immediately joined the work of the previous American administration in the hope of profiting from the collapse of our country.”
In another notable remark directed outside Russia’s borders, Putin voiced agreement with President Donald Trump’s repeated claim that the war would not have happened if he were president.
“It was not us who started the war in 2022; it was destructive forces in Ukraine with the support of the West,” Putin said. “In essence, the West itself unleashed this war. We are only trying to finish it, to stop it. … President Trump says that if he had been president then, none of this would have happened. This may well be true, because the previous administration deliberately steered things toward an armed conflict.”
He commended the Trump administration’s work to bring an end to the war but warned that peace is “unlikely” with “the current political elites” in Europe.
The Russian president praised the accomplishments of the Russian army over the past year, noting its growing battlefield progress. He warned that the army would move to expand a “buffer security zone” along the border with Ukraine if peace talks did not bear fruit.
“Our troops are different now; they are battle-hardened, and there is no other such army in the world now,” he said.
The meeting also featured Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov, a technocrat credited with much of Russia’s success on the battlefield this year. He voiced a readiness to continue the war throughout 2026, saying the defense ministry’s “key task for the coming year is to maintain and increase the current pace of advance.”
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles told Vanity Fair in an interview released Tuesday that Trump no longer believes Putin wants peace and suggested no amount of land concessions would appease the Russian president.
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“The experts think that if he could get the rest of Donetsk, then he would be happy,” Wiles said. “Donald Trump thinks he wants the whole country.”
Direct peace talks between the U.S. and Russia are slated to resume in earnest over the weekend, when special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, meet with a Russian delegation in Miami, Politico reported.