By Geoffrey Roberts, 3/24/25

Below is a translation of the Kommersant’ report of Putin’s private remarks to Russian businessmen on Russia’s retention of the four incorporated territories of Lugansk, Donets, Kherson and Zaporozhe. This section comes at the end of a very long report by the journalist of the public proceedings of the businessmen’s congress – at which Putin also spoke.

Andrei Kolesnikov

Kommersant’

18 March

https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/7586520

In the closed part of the meeting, some participants told me, Vladimir Putin did not talk to the businessmen about business. He said he was leaving that to the Deputy Chief of the [Presidential] Administration, Maxim Oreshkin, with whom they could resolve all the issues.

Then he talked to the elected congress delegates of about what he had been thinking about preparing for conversation with Donald Trump.

First off, they had to sit through the traditional historical digression. From the beginning there could have been very little bloodshed, said Vladimir Putin. They just needed to hear him, Vladimir Putin, and start talking. First, about recognising Crimea. Then, when it became clear that they did not want to listen, about recognising the autonomy of the Lugansk and Donetsk republics. Finally, about recognising them, as well as the Kherson and Zaporozhe regions, as part of Russia. And the further point at which Russia could be stopped, be pushed back, the less chance there was to reach an agreement. And in the end, it turned out that Russia could no longer be stopped…

“They don’t have time to dig in,” said Vladimir Putin…

Now, according to my interlocutors, the talks at the negotiations are about the fact that what has been achieved cannot be taken away from Russia and that Crimea, Sevastopol and the four known territories should be recognised as part of Russia: the Lugansk and Donetsk republics, the Kherson and Zaporozhe regions.

If this happens in the near future, the meeting participants told me, Russia will not lay claim to Odessa and other territories that currently belong to Ukraine.

But this point may also shift, because “they don’t have time to dig in.”