Moscow vows to pursue Putin's June 2024 war aims as Europe seeks a seat in talks

Moscow holds to its 2024 terms

Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov told the Vesti broadcaster, as relayed by Tass, that Moscow will shape its negotiating line to reach the aims Vladimir Putin formulated in June 2024, and that those aims have not changed since. He described the European push to join the talks as a late bid.

“They probably realize that the train is leaving and are trying to jump onto the steps of the last carriage.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov linked any settlement in Ukraine to the new security architecture on the European continent, calling the two issues interdependent and saying one cannot exist without the other. On 14 June 2024, on the eve of a peace conference in Switzerland, Putin set out conditions at Russia's Foreign Ministry. Ukrainian forces were to leave Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, and Kyiv was to renounce NATO membership. Moscow said a ceasefire and negotiations would follow once Kyiv began withdrawing and announced it was giving up NATO. The offer was rejected at the time by Zelensky and Western allies.

Washington's proposal and Kyiv's response

Zelensky said US negotiators had proposed that Ukraine pull its remaining forces out of Donbas in exchange for NATO membership. He said the proposal put NATO back on the agenda, while warning that the talks were extremely difficult given Putin's signals. Zelensky also described a package of security guarantees under discussion with partners, some of them from NATO and the EU, that would include a strong Ukrainian army and reconstruction agreements. He said any package confirmed by Western countries would be put to Ukrainian society, and he raised the possibility of a referendum if specific guarantees, financial support and weapons were provided. He also urged a US military aid package before January, when a new Congress with a Democratic majority takes office in Washington.

The BBC, cited in the coverage, puts Russia's occupation at about a fifth of Ukrainian territory, including most of Donetsk and Luhansk. Zelensky said Putin's immediate aim is to push Ukrainian forces out of Kostyantynivka in Donetsk so that Russian troops can enter and occupy the whole city. Asked whether European negotiators had tried to contact Russia, Peskov said no, not yet.

Draft Russian demands on Europe

The Telegraph reports a document dated 10 November that lists Russian demands in talks mediated by US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, and says the text reflects Putin's position. Among the conditions, the United Kingdom would renounce extending its nuclear protection to other European countries and exclude its submarine-based deterrent from NATO's wider defence system. NATO would pull back from Eastern Europe and the Baltic states, Finland would be excluded from the alliance, Western military supplies to Kyiv would stop, and NATO forces would return to their positions before 1997. In return, Russia would keep the Ukrainian territory it occupies. Kyiv could be considered for EU membership only if it stayed out of the bloc's common defence and Belarus removed nuclear weapons.

European response and the E5 format

In Dublin on 13 November, European leaders agreed on a team of France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the United Kingdom, supported by EU institutions. This E5 format enlarges the E3 of Paris, London and Berlin and is expected to represent Europe in the next negotiating steps, possibly within two weeks if a new round in Abu Dhabi is confirmed, with NATO possibly taking part. At this stage national security advisers and diplomats, not heads of government, would sit at the table. For Italy, that role goes to Palazzo Chigi's diplomatic adviser Fabrizio Saggio, not Giorgia Meloni. After the Dublin meeting, UK prime minister Andy Burnham ruled out Moscow dictating the terms of European security.

Overnight strikes and the wider calendar

Russia's Defence Ministry said air defences downed 533 Ukrainian drones between 20:00 on 14 November and 08:00 on 15 November local time, over a wide area of Russian regions, Tatarstan and Crimea. Ukraine's air force said Russia launched 132 drones overnight, including 78 jet-powered Shahed drones, and that 106 were downed or neutralized in a preliminary count as of 8:00. The attacks caused impacts in 20 localities.

Launched132

Downed or neutralized106

Launched

132 drones

Downed or neutralized

106 drones

Data from the article text

In Chernomorsk, in the Odesa region, six people were injured in a raid that damaged energy infrastructure and an administrative building. In Kropyvnytskyi, a drone hit a residential building and injured three people, according to governor Andriy Raykovych on Telegram. Separately, Farage, leader of the British far right, broke with the pro-Putin camp and called Moscow his number one threat. The Kremlin confirmed the date of a trilateral meeting of Trump, Putin and Xi on 19 November on the margins of APEC.