Vladimir Putin is not ready to loosen the rope on Ukraine. There will be no peace until the Kyiv government accepts an agreement that takes into account Russia’s security concerns, the head of the Kremlin said yesterday at the traditional year-end press conference, where he also answered questions of Russian citizens.
For the conflict to end, he added, Russian troops must meet the goals set when they crossed the border into Ukraine on February 24, 2022, and the worst conflict on the continent since the end of World War II began. world “Peace will come when Russia achieves its goals,” the head of the Kremlin said from the Gostini Dvor congress center in Moscow. In other words: force Ukraine to “demilitarize”, to “denazify”, and to adopt a neutral status. “If they (the Ukrainians) do not want to reach an agreement, we are obliged to take other measures, including military ones. Either we reach an agreement, we agree on certain parameters… or we resolve it by force,” said Putin.
The position shown by the head of the Kremlin removes any hope that negotiations can be opened to end the conflict. “Today Ukraine produces almost nothing (…) They bring everything from outside, for free. But this bargain may end one day. And it’s apparently ending,” said the Russian president.
Putin did not miss the opportunity to stand up and boast about the “strength and stability” of the Russian economy in the face of Western sanctions. “The most important indicator is economic growth. It is expected that the increase in GDP at the end of the year will reach 3.5%. It means that we have recovered from last year’s fall and have taken a relatively serious step forward”, he assured.
Putin had to recognize, however, the Achilles heel of Russian statistics: inflation, which “is expected to be at the end of the year at 7.5%, maybe a little more, in 8%”, but pointed out that “the central bank and the Government are already taking the necessary measures”.
He also boasted of resistance in the military plan. On the one hand, he said again that the Ukrainian counter-offensive “achieved nothing”. On the other hand, he asserted that Russia has enough means and personnel to maintain the military bet.
In this sense, he denied the rumors about a second mobilization to send new soldiers to fight in Ukraine. “It is not needed”, he summarized. And he recalled that after the partial mobilization of September 2022, in which more than 300,000 reservists were recruited, Russia launched a campaign to attract volunteers. “It was planned to attract 412,000 and 486,000 signed up, and the flow of men ready to defend the homeland with weapons in hand does not stop: 1,500 every day throughout the country.”
The war in Ukraine has broken Russia’s relations with Western countries. Putin stated that it is possible to put them back together, but with conditions. “When there are internal changes (in the United States), when they begin to respect other people, other countries, when they begin to seek compromises instead of trying to solve problems with sanctions and military intervention, then the fundamental conditions will be created for restore full relationships. So far there are no such conditions, but we are ready”, he asserted.
As for the EU, the head of the Kremlin claimed that it has “lost its sovereignty” because it follows the US. According to Putin, “from the outside they behave like General (Charles) De Gaulle, who fought with arms in hand against the occupiers. But in practice, they behave like Marshal (Philippe) Pétain, who obeyed the will of the “Nazi occupiers” of France during the Second World War.
Putin stressed that everyone behaves like this, “except a few people”, and named the prime ministers of Hungary and Slovakia, Viktor Orbán and Robert Fico, hours before the former failed to veto the start of negotiations for Ukraine’s entry into the European Union. “They are not pro-Russian, they are pro-national”, he said of them.
