In a televised speech on Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed the peace proposals from the West and Ukraine.
On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that the continuation of the war could inflict an “irreparable damage” to Ukraine’s statehood, and that Russia would not give up the territories it had captured. He made these remarks on television, one day after Switzerland announced that it would host a global summit following the request of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Putin rejected the “so-called peace formulas” that were being proposed by the West and Ukraine, and said that they contained “prohibitive demands” for Russia. He said that if they did not want to negotiate, then they should not. He added that it was clear that not only had Ukraine’s counter-offensive failed, but also that the Russian armed forces had the upper hand in the conflict.
He said that if this situation persisted, Ukraine’s statehood could suffer a very serious and irreparable damage. Putin’s comments on the war have grown more confident and assertive in the recent months, as Ukraine’s counter-offensive has not been able to make any significant progress against the Russian forces that are well fortified.
Russia currently occupies 17.5% of Ukraine’s territory. Putin said that the talk of negotiation was “an attempt to persuade us to relinquish the territories that we have secured over the past year and a half. But this is impossible. Everyone knows that this is impossible.”
Zelenskiy’s peace formula demands that Ukraine’s territorial integrity be restored, that the hostilities be stopped, and that the Russian troops be withdrawn, among other things. Russia says that any negotiation must take into account the “new realities” that its forces have created on the ground.
