Moscow rejects Ukraine peace proposal, says Kiev must face ‘reality’ and accept annexed regions as ‘new subjects’ of Russia

Russia has rejected a Ukrainian peace proposal, saying Kiev must recognize its new territorial “reality”.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy provided the Kremlin with the conditions that would ensure the withdrawal of Russian troops from his country.

However, Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said Ukraine must accept Russia’s annexation of four regions, which are now “new subjects” of Moscow.

Putin fraudulently claimed the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions in September, but most UN countries condemned the move as illegal.

In November, Moscow withdrew from the capital, Kherson, but still controls most of the wider Kherson region.

Peskov was responding Monday to a request by Zelenskyy to G7 leaders for more military equipment, support for financial and energy stability and support for a peace settlement that would begin with Russia’s withdrawal from Ukraine by Christmas.

“These are three steps to continued hostilities,” Peskov said.

“The Ukrainian side must take into account the reality that has developed during this period,” he added, when asked about the planned withdrawal of Russian troops.

“And these realities indicate that new topics have appeared in the Russian Federation.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy provided the Kremlin with the conditions that would ensure the withdrawal of Russian troops from his country

Putin (pictured yesterday with Constitutional Court President Valery Zorkin) fraudulently claimed Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson Oblasts in September

“They appeared as a result of referenda held in those areas. Without taking this new reality into account, no progress is possible.’

There is no doubt that Russia will begin withdrawing its troops by the end of the year, he said.

Ukraine and its Western allies dismissed the “referendums” Peskov referred to in four regions of southern and eastern Ukraine that Russia partially occupies as illegal fraud and said they were held at gunpoint.

Russia has lost significant territory in southern and eastern Ukraine since the annexations and has more frequently agreed to peace talks.

But she says she sees that Ukraine and the West, which is arming Kiev, are unwilling to negotiate.

A general view of the destroyed buildings after yesterday’s explosion in downtown Kherson

Moscow has denied accusations that its talk of diplomacy is an attempt to buy its depleted troops time to regroup after nearly 10 months of war and a series of defeats and retreats.

Ukraine says Russia must stop its attacks and withdraw from all occupied territories, and Zelenskyy on Monday called on G7 leaders to back his idea of ​​convening a special global peace summit.

The summit will focus on the implementation of the 10-point Kiev plan, which, among other things, insists that Russia withdraw all its troops from Ukraine and make no territorial concessions from Kiev.

“Whatever the attacker intends to do, when the world is truly united, the world, not the attacker, determines how events unfold,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video speech on Monday.

Meanwhile, Russian-installed authorities today accused pro-Kiev forces of using explosives to damage a bridge to Melitopol, a strategic town in Moscow-controlled part of southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region.

A bridge over a canal near the occupied Ukrainian city of Melitopol was destroyed in a sabotage attack orchestrated by Kiev

A crack can be seen in the sharply curved road that was an important route for military supplies from Russia to frontline troops in southern Ukraine

The attack comes after Ukrainian troops attacked Melitopol at the weekend, opening a new front in Kiev’s fight to take back land in the south of the western-backed country.

Melitopol, an important transport hub, is the key to the liberation of southern Ukraine.

“The bridge in the village of Konstantinovka in the eastern suburbs of Melitopol was damaged by terrorists,” Vladimir Rogov, a Moscow-based regional official, told the Telegram messaging app.

He said the attack was carried out with “explosives”.

Rogov did not specify the extent of the damage, but photos on his social media showed a middle section of the bridge collapsed.

Rogov said the bridge would be used to supply Moscow-controlled parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions, areas that form a land corridor linking Russia and Crimea, a peninsula that Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014 .

Russia has accused pro-Kiev forces of a series of sabotage attacks, including an explosion that damaged a bridge connecting Crimea to mainland Russia in October.

Ukraine attacked Melitopol on Saturday night with US-supplied long-range HIMARS rocket launchers, pro-Russian officials said.