As Russia’s war against Ukraine rages on, and Kyiv escalates its counteroffensive, Russian President Vladimir Putin says a ceasefire is hard to implement.
He made the claim at a carefully orchestrated press event attended by a small group of Russian media in St. Petersburg.
Putin said Moscow has never rejected peace negotiations with Ukraine. In order to start the process to end the war, an agreement is needed from both sides, but it is difficult to reach one while Ukraine’s army is on offense, the Russian leader said.
The Ukrainian army is on the offensive, it is on the attack, on what is called a large-scale strategic offensive,” Putin said. “We cannot declare a ceasefire when we are attacked.”
Key context: This week at a summit with African governments, Putin said he was considering a peace initiative proposed by the leaders and blamed Kyiv for not coming to the table.
But Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has ruled out any peace negotiations with Russia until Moscow’s troops withdraw from his country’s territory, characterizing the conflict as an unprovoked war of aggression launched by Putin.
Zelensky said allowing any negotiations while another nation’s military is occupying Ukraine would only “freeze” the war, pain and suffering caused by Putin’s invasion.
Ukraine’s purported losses: Putin also said on Saturday that Ukrainian forces lost 415 of its tanks and 1,300 armored vehicles since June 4.
When asked for comment by CNN on the Russian leader’s claims, Serhii Cherevatyi, the deputy commander of the Ukraine military’s Eastern Group for Strategic Communications, joked that “if we really had so much (material), we’d already be in Moscow.
“It seems to me that he is living in his own universe,” Cherevatyi said.
On critics: When asked by a journalist about the arrest of people in Russia who are critical of his leadership during the armed conflict with Ukraine, Putin replied:
We are in 2023 and the Russian Federation is in a state of armed conflict with a neighbor. I think that there should be a certain attitude towards those people who harm us within the country.”
CNN’s Radina Gigova and Uliana Pavlova contributed to this post
