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Putin’s remarks came as Switzerland prepares to host dozens of world leaders – but not from Moscow – this weekend to try to mark the first steps towards peace in Ukraine.
They also coincided with leaders of the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations meeting in Italy and after the US and Ukraine this week signed a 10-year security deal that Russian officials, including Putin, denounced as “invalid”.
Putin criticized the conference in Switzerland as “just another ploy to distract everyone, to turn the cause and effect of the Ukrainian crisis [and] steered the discussion in the wrong direction’.
His demands, in a speech at Russia’s foreign ministry, were aimed at what he called a “final resolution” of the conflict rather than “freezing it”, and stressed that the Kremlin was “ready to start negotiations without delay”.
The broader peace demands that Putin listed included Russia’s recognition of Crimea as part of Russia, maintaining the country’s non-nuclear status, limiting its military power and protecting the interests of the Russian-speaking population. All this should be part of “fundamental international agreements” and all Western sanctions against Russia should be lifted, Putin said.
“We call to turn this tragic page of history and begin a gradual restoration of unity between Russia and Ukraine and in Europe as a whole,” he said.
Putin’s remarks, made to a group of somber foreign ministry officials and some senior lawmakers, were a rare occasion in which he made clear his terms for ending the war in Ukraine but did not include any new demands. The Kremlin has said before that Kiev should recognize its territorial gains and abandon its bid for NATO membership.
But Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry called Putin’s plan “manipulative,” “absurd” and designed to “deceive the international community, undermine diplomatic efforts aimed at achieving a just peace, and divide the unity of the world majority around the goals and principles of The UN Charter. “.
As well as seeking to join NATO, Ukraine wants Russian forces out of its territory, including the Crimean peninsula, which was illegally annexed in 2014; the restoration of the territorial integrity of Ukraine; and that Russia be held accountable for war crimes and that Moscow pay reparations to Kiev.
Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. After Ukrainian forces thwarted a Russian advance on the capital, much of the fighting has been concentrated in the south and east – and Moscow has illegally annexed regions in the east and south, despite not fully controlling either from them.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said on social media that there was nothing new from Putin and that the Russian leader had “only expressed the ‘standard set of the aggressor’, which has already been heard many times.”
“There is nothing new about this, there are no real proposals for peace and there is no desire to end the war. But there is a desire not to pay for this war and continue it in new formats. Everything is a complete fraud,” wrote Podoliak on X.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said at NATO headquarters in Brussels that Putin “illegally occupied sovereign Ukrainian territory. He is in no position to dictate to Ukraine what it needs to do to achieve peace.”
Austin added that Putin “started this war without provocation. He can end it today if he chooses to do so.”
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg added that “this is not a peace proposal. This is a proposal for more aggression, more occupation and demonstrates in some way that Russia’s goal is to control Ukraine.”
Putin insisted that Kiev should withdraw entirely from the four annexed regions and essentially hand them over to Moscow within their administrative boundaries. In Zaporozhye in the southeast, Russia still does not control the administrative capital of the region, which had a prewar population of about 700,000; in neighboring Kherson Oblast, Moscow withdrew from its largest city and capital of the same name in November 2022.
Putin said that if “Kiev and Western capitals” reject his offer, “it is their job, their political and moral responsibility for the continuation of the bloodshed.”
The Kremlin has repeatedly expressed its readiness for peace talks with Kiev and has accused the West of undermining its efforts to end the conflict.
Putin went further on Friday and said his troops had never intended to storm Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, even though they had come close to the city.
“Basically, it was nothing but an operation to force the Ukrainian regime into peace. The troops were there to get the Ukrainian side to negotiate, to try to find an acceptable solution,” he said.
Moscow pulled out of Kiev in March 2022 in what it described as a goodwill gesture when peace talks between the two began, but the withdrawal came amid fierce Ukrainian resistance that has significantly slowed Russia’s progress on the battlefield.
Putin also claimed that in the same month he told a foreign official that he did not rule out withdrawing forces from the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions and returning occupied parts of them back to Ukraine, as long as Kiev allowed Russia to have a “strong ground” . connection” with Crimea.
He said the official plans to take that proposal to Kiev – which Moscow “welcomes” as it generally welcomes “attempts to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict”. But the Kremlin then annexed both regions, along with Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, citing the results of fake “referendums” it organized there. Putin mentioned them and said: “The issue is closed forever and is no longer up for discussion.”
In Friday’s fighting, Russian defenses shot down 87 Ukrainian drones, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said, most of which were fired at Rostov Oblast, home to Russia’s Southern Military Command, but no deaths or damage were reported in one of the most the large Ukrainian drones. of the war.
In Russia’s Belgorod region on the border, part of a residential building collapsed in the town of Shebekino after Ukrainian shelling, Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said. Three people were injured, he said.
Ukraine’s army has been lagging behind in recent months, with its troops outnumbered by Kremlin forces and short of ammunition and weapons due to a delay in promised military aid from the West.
Russia hit Ukraine with drones, especially its power grid. It fired 14 missiles and 17 Shahed drones overnight, Ukraine’s air force said. Air defense systems shot down all the drones, as well as seven missiles, it said.
The attacks wounded six people in the Donetsk region, where residential buildings were hit, officials said.
A Russian drone struck a bus near the village of Esman in the northern Sumy region, injuring three women. Authorities say there were 20 passengers on the bus at the time.
Also on Friday, Russia returned the bodies of 254 of its soldiers to Ukraine, Kiev said. Once identified, the bodies will be returned to relatives, according to Ukraine’s Coordination Staff for the Treatment of Prisoners of War.
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