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Vladimir Putin has said he thinks the Ukraine war is winding down – remarks that came a few hours after he had vowed to defeat Ukraine at Moscow’s most scaled-back Victory Day parade in years.
“I think that the matter is coming to an end,” Putin told reporters of the Russia-Ukraine war, Europe’s deadliest conflict since the second world war. He said he would be willing to negotiate new security arrangements for Europe, and that his preferred negotiating partner would be Germany’s former chancellor Gerhard Schröder.
Putin, who has ruled Russia as president or prime minister since the last day of 1999, faces a wave of anxiety in Moscow about the war in Ukraine, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people, left swathes of Ukraine in ruins, and drained Russia’s economy. Russia’s relations with Europe are worse than at any time since the depths of the cold war.
Russian forces have so far been unable to take the whole of the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine where Kyiv’s forces have been pushed back to a line of fortress cities. Russian advances have slowed this year, though Moscow controls just under one-fifth of Ukrainian territory.
Speaking on Saturday, Putin slammed western support for Kyiv, as the first day of a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire was marked by mutual accusations of violations.
“They [the west] started ratcheting up the confrontation with Russia, which continues to this day.
“I think it [the war] is heading to an end but it’s still a serious matter.
“They spent months waiting for Russia to suffer a crushing defeat, for its statehood to collapse. It didn’t work out.
“And then they got stuck in that groove and now they can’t get out of it.”
Putin added that he was ready to meet Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in a third country only once all conditions for a potential peace agreement were settled – holding to his usual position on a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart.
“This should be the final point, not the negotiations themselves,” he said.
Asked if he was willing to engage in talks with the Europeans, Putin said: “For me personally, the former chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Mr Schröder, is preferable.”
Many in Ukraine and Europe will be sceptical of involving Schröder given his background as a close friend of Putin and history of ties to Russian business and projects, such as the Nord Stream gas pipelines. In 2022, after the war broke out, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, called Schröder “disgusting” for meeting with Putin and speaking in the Russian ruler’s favour.
Russia, Ukraine and Donald Trump on Friday announced that a three-day ceasefire between both sides would come into effect from Saturday. Moscow and Kyiv traded accusations of violations amid continued drone activity and civilian casualties on both sides.
The Kremlin said there were no plans to prolong the truce. The warring sides also agreed to swap 1,000 prisoners each during the truce. Putin said on Saturday that Russia had not yet received any proposals from Ukraine on the exchange.
The Victory Day parade was vastly smaller compared to previous years, with no military hardware on display for the first time in nearly two decades and only a handful of foreign dignitaries in attendance – most of them leaders of Russia’s close allies.
In the week prior there had been clear notes of desperation from the Russian side that the parade not be disturbed by Ukrainian attacks. Moscow threatened to bomb the centre of Kyiv including foreign embassies, warning overseas missions to evacuate their staff.
For his part, Zelenskyy – after earlier issuing a “decree” allowing the Moscow parade to go ahead – observed Saturday as Europe Day, which is celebrated as a foundational day of the EU. He said Ukraine was an “inseparable part of the European family”.
“From the first days of the full-scale war until today, Europe has stood with Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said. “And this is not charity – it is a choice made by Europeans: to stand on the same side as the brave and the strong.”
Only the leaders of Belarus, Malaysia, Laos, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan were listed as attending Putin’s parade, in contrast to high-profile visitors including China’s Xi Jinping during last year’s event.
Now in its fifth year, the war has killed hundreds of thousands of people and spiralled into Europe’s deadliest since the second world war.
The European Council president, António Costa, said last week that he believed there was “potential” for the EU to negotiate with Russia, and to discuss the future of the security architecture of Europe.
With Reuters and Agence France-Presse
