By Mark Bendeich
ST PETERSBURG, Russia, June 4 (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin stuck to his hardline stance on the war in Ukraine on Thursday and said his troops were advancing on the battlefield every day, but he also said that U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposals for peace could end the fighting if Kyiv was ready to compromise.
He made his comments to foreign media editors, including Reuters, on the sidelines of Russia’s showcase annual economic forum as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy published an open letter to Putin in which he proposed the two leaders meet to agree on an end to the war, warning that Kyiv stood ready to fight on otherwise. Putin’s spokesman said the Kremlin chief was aware of the message, but had not yet had a chance to familiarise himself with its contents in detail. Trump said it would be great if the two leaders met.
Speaking in what is the fifth year of Europe’s deadliest land war since World War Two, a conflict that Russia — one of the world’s biggest military superpowers — thought it would win quickly, Putin said that manpower, industrial resources and will power were on Russia’s side. His army had “recently” pushed Ukrainian forces out of nearly 2,500 km (1,553 miles) of territory, he said, though he conceded that Moscow had to and would improve its air defences to contend with a growing threat from Ukrainian drones.
Some Western and Ukrainian military analysts say Russia’s advance has slowed significantly, however, and argue that Russia is still a long way from achieving its own stated military goals. Putin struck a bullish note, though.
“The offensive is ongoing on a daily basis. At present, the Russian Federation has taken full control of the Luhansk People’s Republic — 100%. And Russia has brought over 85% of the territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic under its control. (And) 80% of the territory of the Zaporizhzhia region,” he said, referring to three of the four regions in Ukraine which Moscow claimed as its own in 2022 in a move Kyiv and most Western countries rejected as an illegal land grab.
“Naturally, under these circumstances, the Ukrainian side would like us to halt the advance. But rather than stopping that, it would be better to bring the war to an end altogether by agreeing to the compromises that were discussed in Anchorage,” he said, referring to a summit he held in Alaska with Trump in August last year.
DONBAS SURRENDER DEMAND
That appeared to be a reference to Moscow’s demand that Ukraine must surrender the rest of its eastern Donbas region — which includes two of the four regions in their entirety — something that Zelenskiy has said would affect the fate of hundreds of thousands of people and leave what remains of Ukraine dangerously vulnerable to further Russian attacks.
Putin said that Kyiv would have to compromise, however, and said that while he understood that Trump was busy with the Iran war for now that perhaps the European Union could use its influence to talk Kyiv around.
Zelenskiy in his own letter made clear, though, that Putin was the one who needed to make a decision to end the war, saying he believed Russians had grown tired of Ukrainian missile and drone attacks, inflation and fuel shortages, and were ready for peace. Putin’s own future could be on the line, the Ukrainian leader warned, unless he made the right call.
Putin told news editors that he had emphasised to Trump last year that he was ready to end the war via diplomacy and to honour unspecified compromises.
“We are certainly prepared and willing to reach an agreement with Ukraine through peaceful means. Specifically, on the basis we discussed during our meeting with President Trump in Anchorage. Russia agrees to those compromises we discussed in Anchorage. The Ukrainian side must also agree to these compromises. Then the conflict will quickly come to a natural conclusion,” Putin said.
“As for what we might say to one another if we were to reach the end of the conflict, at the very least we could — and indeed should — say, ‘Thank goodness it’s all over,'” he added.
HYPERSONIC WEAPON WARNING
The Kremlin chief also engaged in some sabre rattling. He said Russia had not yet used its Oreshnik hypersonic missile against Ukraine in real combat conditions, but had only test-fired it to observe the results in order to make decisions about its future full-scale use, including against urban targets.
The Oreshnik, which Russia first fired against Ukraine in 2024, is a nuclear-capable missile with a range of over 5,000 km (3,100 miles). Putin has said before that it is impossible to intercept, though Western experts have questioned that assertion.
Putin, in power as either president or prime minister since 1999, sidestepped a question from Reuters about his own political future beyond the end of his current term in 2030, saying his health was in God’s hands. He said that the constitution allowed him to run again in 2030 and serve another term until 2036 if he won, but that it was too early to think about that.
“The country faces a lot of large-scale and pressing issues,” he said. “They need to be solved without thinking about it, but thinking about the future of Russia.”
(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin, Dmitry Antonov, Anastasia Lyrchikova, Darya Korsunskaya, Maxim Rodionov, Gleb Stolyarov, Ron Popeski Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge, Daniel Wallis and Matthew Lewis)
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