Putin stays firm on his decision to go to war with Ukraine and wants Kyiv to make peace deals
Putin says that in order for peace to happen, Ukraine must agree to Russian terms, even though Moscow is still conducting military actions.
Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, has said that Russian forces are making progress every day in Ukraine. He is also confident that Moscow will win the conflict in the end, but he has said that any peace deal would need Kyiv to give in.
Putin told reporters from other countries at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum that Russian troops were still making progress on the battlefield and had taken over more areas that Moscow claimed.
Putin said, “The offensive is going on every day.” He also said that Russia had full control of the Luhansk region and most of the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.
He said that Russia had an edge in the war, which was now in its fifth year, because of its strong military, industrial base, and determination. He also said that peace was still possible if Ukraine was willing to make concessions. Putin also said that ideas he talked about with US President Donald Trump could help end the war if Kyiv agreed to them.
Putin’s words came after Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, wrote an open letter asking Putin and Zelenskyy to meet to talk about ending the war. Putin knew about the message, but the Kremlin said he hadn’t read it all the way through yet.
The Russian leader said again that Moscow still wants to control the rest of the Donbas region, which is something that Kyiv has said many times it doesn’t want. Reuters cited analysts who said that Russia is still making progress, but some Western and Ukrainian military experts think the rate of progress has slowed down a lot.
Putin also said that Russia would keep improving its air defenses to protect itself from the growing number of Ukrainian drone strikes that are aimed at military and civilian targets deep inside Russia.
