Russian President Says He Thinks the Russia-Ukraine War Is Coming to an End

EPA

Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday that he believed the war in Ukraine was approaching its end, remarks made just hours after he had vowed victory during Russia’s most scaled-back Victory Day parade in years in Moscow.

"I think that the matter is coming to an end," President Putin told reporters of the Russia-Ukraine war, Europe's deadliest conflict since World War Two. He also 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 Schroeder.

The Kremlin has said peace talks brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration were on pause. President Putin has repeatedly vowed to fight on until all of Russia's various war aims are achieved ⁠in what Moscow calls the "special military operation".

President Putin was speaking in the Kremlin after setting out his view of the causes of the war. He blamed "globalist" Western leaders, saying they promised NATO would not expand eastward after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, but then tried to draw Ukraine into the European Union's orbit.

Asked if he was willing to engage in talks with the Europeans, President Putin said the preferable figure for him was Schroeder.

"For me personally, the former Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Mr. Schroeder, is preferable," President Putin said.

Asked about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, President Putin said a meeting was possible only once a lasting peace deal was agreed.

His statement came just hours after the parade on the May 9 national holiday celebrating the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two. The annual event pays homage to the 27 million Soviet citizens who perished in that war.

Instead of the usual intercontinental ballistic missiles, tanks and missile systems rolling across the cobbles of Red Square, Russia played a video of its military hardware in action on giant screens opposite the Kremlin walls.

Russian troops have been fighting in Ukraine for well over four years. That is longer than Soviet forces fought in World War Two, known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45.

Source: Reuters



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