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Putin to fight on until Russia ‘achieves its goals’ as Ukraine moves closer to EU membership
By Rob Harris
London: Russian President Vladimir Putin has said his invasion of Ukraine will end only when he achieves his goals, indicating during a marathon four-hour press conference that he intends to keep fighting unless Kyiv capitulates.
Almost two years into the war, Putin said that he was still focused on what he claims to be the “denazification” and “demilitarisation” of Ukraine. He reiterated that he was open to peace talks, but offered no hint of a willingness to compromise.
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during his annual news conference in Moscow, Russia.Credit: Kremlin Pool Photo via AP
“Peace will come when we achieve our goals,” Putin said. “As for demilitarisation, if they [Ukrainians] don’t want to come to an agreement – well, then we are forced to take other measures, including military ones.
“Either we get an agreement, agree on certain parameters... or we solve this by force. This is what we will strive for.”
Putin’s staged-managed annual address – the took questions at length for the first time since ordering the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 – came as European Union leaders agreed to open accession talks with Ukraine at a charged summit in Brussels, after Hungary Prime Minister Viktor Orban relented in his opposition to the historic step.
The decision marked a major milestone on Kyiv’s determined path to join the union once the war with Russia is over and represents an endorsement by Brussels of the country’s Western trajectory.
It is part of the EU’s proposed support package for Ukraine alongside a four-year, €50 billion ($82 billion) fund from the bloc’s shared budget which is yet to be agreed.
The stage-managed event was the first time Putin had taken questions at length since ordering the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.Credit: Kremlin Pool Photo via AP
Putin meanwhile also addressed the public disquiet over the war by saying a second mobilisation of reservists to fight in Ukraine was unnecessary, reassuring Russians that there was no need to draft more men. Last year’s mobilisation led to mass panic and prompted hundreds of thousands of people to flee the country.
He praised those who were mobilised in a call-up of 300,000 people in September last year, saying they had been denigrated but were “fighting in excellent fashion”, and 14 of them had been made Heroes of Russia, the country’s highest military award.
“The enemy announced a big counter-offensive. None of it worked anywhere,” Putin said. “I don’t even know why they do this. They are just sending their men out to be destroyed.”
US President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrives at a news conference in the White House Campus on Tuesday.Credit: AP
The longest-serving Kremlin leader since Josef Stalin announced last week that he would run for a fifth term as president in the March elections. That would extend his rule to 2030. He has cast himself as the right man to continue leading Russia through a conflict that he sees as existential. Kyiv and its Western allies see the war on Ukraine as an unprovoked colonial-style land grab.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has refused to negotiate a ceasefire and accept the loss of a fifth of his country’s territory, which is currently under Russian control. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed or wounded in Ukraine, and millions have been forced from their homes. Exact numbers are not disclosed by either party.
Putin said he had detected signs that Western enthusiasm for providing military and financial aid for Ukraine was waning, but that he believed Kyiv would keep receiving help for now. But Ukrainian optimism has faded recently and the Western resolve to keep supporting its counter-offensive has started to falter, despite Kyiv inflicting a series of humiliating battlefield setbacks on Russia last year.
Members of the pro-Ukrainian Russian ethnic Siberian Battalion rest at a military training close to Kyiv, Ukraine, on Wednesday.Credit: AP
“Ukraine produces almost nothing today, everything is coming from the west, but the free stuff is going to run out some day, and it seems it already is,” Putin said.
Putin claimed that Ukraine was running out of troops after taking heavy casualties in its counteroffensive, which failed to secure any significant territorial gains this year, and expressed confidence that Russia’s army was turning the tide.
As he spoke, questions from the public flashed up on a giant screen with some asking why everything was becoming so costly.
He apologised to a pensioner who urged him to “take mercy” on elderly Russians and reduce the cost of eggs amid soaring inflation.
“I am very sorry, please accept my apologies for that,” he said, adding that imports from Turkey and Belarus would increase supply and reduce prices.
He said the Russian economy, buffeted by Western sanctions, was set to grow by 3.5 per cent this year, but also said that annual inflation could reach 8 per cent and blamed the government for sharp rises in the price of eggs.
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