Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke at the Kremlin on Saturday after setting out his view of the causes of the Ukraine war, linking the conflict to NATO enlargement and Kyiv’s ties with the European Union.
“I think that the matter is coming to an end”, Putin told reporters, referring to the Russia-Ukraine war, Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.
He also said he would be willing to negotiate new security arrangements for Europe and that his preferred negotiating partner would be former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.
Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine triggered the most serious crisis in relations between Moscow and the West since the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, when many people feared the world was on the brink of nuclear war.
The Kremlin has said peace talks brokered by the administration of US President Donald Trump are on hold. Putin has repeatedly vowed to keep fighting until all of Russia’s war aims are achieved in what Moscow calls the “special military operation”.
Putin blamed “globalist” Western leaders, saying they promised after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 that NATO would not expand eastward, but then tried to draw Ukraine into the European Union’s orbit.
A Scaled-Back Victory Day Display
His remarks came just hours after the 9 May parade, held on the national holiday marking the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. The annual event pays tribute to the 27 million Soviet citizens who died in that war.
Instead of the usual intercontinental ballistic missiles, tanks and missile systems rolling across the cobblestones of Red Square, Russia played video footage of its military hardware in action on giant screens opposite the Kremlin walls.
Russian troops have been fighting in Ukraine for well over four years. That is longer than Soviet forces fought in World War II, known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45.
Putin, who has ruled Russia as president or prime minister since the last day of 1999, faces a wave of anxiety in Moscow over a war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people, left large parts of Ukraine in ruins and drained Russia’s $3tn economy. Moscow’s relations with Europe are worse than at any time since the depths of the Cold War.
Russian forces have so far been unable to take the whole of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, where Kyiv’s troops have been pushed back to a line of fortress cities. Moscow’s advances have slowed this year, although it controls just under one fifth of Ukrainian territory.
After Russia and Ukraine accused each other of violating unilateral ceasefires declared in recent days, Trump announced a three-day truce from Saturday to Monday that was backed by both the Kremlin and Kyiv. The two sides also agreed to exchange 1,000 prisoners.
“I’d like to see it stop. Russia-Ukraine – it’s the worst thing since World War II in terms of life. Twenty-five thousand young soldiers every month. It’s crazy”, Trump told reporters in Washington.
He added that he would “like to see a big extension” of the ceasefire.
Ukrainian officials reported on Sunday that Russian drone strikes and nearly 150 battlefield clashes had taken place over the previous 24 hours, as the US-brokered ceasefire was meant to be in force. One person was killed and three were wounded in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, while officials in Kharkiv, Kherson and Dnipropetrovsk also reported casualties from drone and artillery strikes.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia had launched 27 long-range drones overnight, all of which were shot down, and the General Staff reported 147 clashes along the front line. Kyiv did not, however, publicly describe the incidents as violations of the ceasefire.
Schröder as Putin’s Preferred European Interlocutor
European Council President António Costa said last week that he believed there was “potential” for the EU to negotiate with Russia and discuss the future of Europe’s security architecture.
Asked whether he was willing to engage in talks with Europeans, Putin indicated that he had a particular interlocutor in mind.
“For me personally, the former Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Mr. Schröder, is preferable”, Putin said.
European leaders have said Russia must be defeated in Ukraine and described Putin as a war criminal and an autocrat who could one day attack a NATO member if allowed to win. Moscow rejects such claims as baseless.
Putin, who ordered troops into Ukraine in February 2022, casts European powers as warmongers for supporting Kyiv with tens of billions of dollars in aid, weapons and intelligence.
Asked about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Putin said a meeting was possible only once a lasting peace deal had been agreed.
(reuters, im)