Putin’s Kostiantynivka proposal aims to seize city, push toward Kramatorsk, Zelensky says

President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia’s proposed “humanitarian mission” in Kostiantynivka could give its forces a chance to enter and occupy the Ukrainian city. He warned that losing it could open the way for Russian advances towards other cities in Donbas, including Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.

Putin raised the proposal at a meeting with US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff on 12 November, and US negotiators later conveyed it to Zelensky. Fighting continues inside Kostiantynivka, which Ukraine says its forces still defend against Russian infiltration. Zelensky said Ukraine had also given the US a list of seven or eight blockaded settlements where civilians, including children, remain, but Russia had proposed no humanitarian operation for those places.