Russian President Vladimir Putin said that it is impossible for his administration to “abandon the territorial gains” made during nearly two years since February 2022. Putin on Tuesday warned that Ukraine’s statehood could suffer an “irreparable and very serious blow” if the war continues and that peace with Kyiv could not be achieved because the then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson played a spoilsport.
Putin made the remarks during a televised meeting with the heads of Russian municipalities. The Russian president who is seeking re-election during presidential elections in March, claimed that the country’s forces were winning the war in Ukraine.
Putin’s comments came hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky virtually told the World Economic Forum in Davos that he was against a ceasefire in the war at this time, and called for a decisive win for his country to conclusively end the conflict.
Ukraine’s counteroffensive has ‘failed’: Vladimir Putin
Putin said that Ukraine’s much-watched and equally anticipated counteroffensive that launched in June had “failed,” and that “the initiative is in the hands of the Russian Armed Forces.”
“If this continues, Ukraine’s statehood may face an irreparable and very serious blow,” Putin added.
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“The so-called ‘peace formula’ that’s being talked about in the West and in Ukraine is a continuation of the decree of the Ukrainian president banning negotiations with Russia,” Putin said, per Sputnik. “As for the negotiating process, it’s an attempt to encourage us to abandon the territorial gains we’ve achieved over the past 1 1/2 years. But this is impossible. Everyone understands that this is impossible.”
Putin’s big claim on peace deal with Ukraine
Putin repeated the claim that Ukraine signed a peace treaty with Russia in the spring of 2022, then threw it into the ‘garbage of history’.
Referring to the purported deal made in Turkey early on during the war, Putin said: “A day later, they threw all the agreements into the trash, and now they are saying publicly—including the head of the Ukrainian negotiating group—that ‘Yes, we were ready, but we missed the chance because then-Prime Minister of Britain [Boris] Johnson came and persuaded us not to implement these agreements.'”
He continued: “Fools, are they not? They’re admitting directly that if they had gone for it, everything could have been ended a long time ago, one and a half years ago.”
Putin also denounced Kyiv for what he claimed were intentional hits on civilian infrastructure, a claim that Ukraine has made against his forces after Russian assaults.
“But instead of solving military tasks, they are acting in this barbaric way, striking peaceful settlements using indiscriminate weapons. Multiple launch rocket systems are simply used to hit wide areas,” Putin said.
(With inputs from agencies)
