AFP, Bishkek

Russian President Vladimir Putin said yesterday that Moscow would end its Ukraine offensive if Kyiv withdrew from territory Moscow claims at its own -- otherwise they would take it by force.

The Russian army has been slowly but steadily grinding through eastern Ukraine in costly battles against outnumbered and outgunned Ukrainian forces.

Washington has meanwhile renewed its push to end the nearly four-year war, putting forward a surprise plan that it hopes to finalise through upcoming talks with Moscow and Kyiv.

“If Ukrainian forces leave the territories they hold, then we will stop combat operations,” Putin said during a visit to Kyrgyzstan. “If they don’t, then we will achieve it by military means.” Russia controls one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory.

The issue of occupied land, which Kyiv has said it will never cede, has become the key stumbling block in the peace process.

Putin repeated the claim that Russia had encircled the Ukrainian army in Pokrovsk and Myrnograd in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.

“Krasnoarmeysk and Dimitrov are completely surrounded,” he said, using the Russian names for the cities. Moscow was also advancing in Vovchansk and Siversk, as well as approaching the important logistic hub of Guliaipole, he added. The Russian offensive “is practically impossible to hold back, so there is little that can be done about it”, Putin said.