Putin claims Ukraine war has made Russia ‘much stronger’ | Russia

Vladimir Putin said the war in Ukraine had made Russia “much stronger” and denied that the fall of his main ally Bashar al-Assad in Syria had hurt Moscow’s standing, as he held a marathon year-end news conference and televised call. to project confidence at home and abroad.

Putin, branding Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “illegitimate”, said he was ready to meet Donald Trump and discuss peace proposals to end his full-scale invasion, but reiterated his hard line that Moscow would keep control of Crimea, along with the four Ukrainian regions he claimed by 2022.

The tightly orchestrated event, typically an annual cocktail of Kremlin pomp and state TV camp, lasted four and a half hours and included telephone questions from war bloggers and pensioners, as well as regional journalists vying for the microphone in a Moscow studio.

Putin appeared largely upbeat and confident as his troops continued to make major advances in Ukraine. “The situation on the battlefield is changing drastically and there is movement along the entire front line,” he boasted. “Every day our fighters are recapturing square kilometers of territory.”

He said the Russian military was “advancing towards achieving our goals” in what he called the special military operation in Ukraine.

Putin said at one point that Moscow was “ready for negotiations and compromises” to end the fighting, but later hinted at a maximalist stance that would involve Ukraine not joining Nato, adopting a neutral status and undergoing some of demilitarization, while he also demanded that the West lift its sanctions against Russia.

He indicated that the Kremlin would refuse to sign any deals with Zelenskyy and rejected the idea of ​​a ceasefire, instead advocating for a deal that would provide “long-term guarantees”.

With the incoming Trump administration promising to quickly end the war in Ukraine, Moscow and Kiev are cautiously considering the prospect of negotiations.

Keith Kellogg, the US president’s nominee for special envoy for the war in Ukraine, said this week that Trump had a vision to end the war. But a viable path to a peace deal remains elusive as Putin shows no signs of backing down from his demands, which appear to be non-starters for Ukraine.

Despite media reports suggesting they had frequently stayed in touch after Trump left office, Putin claimed he had not spoken to Trump in four years. He said he was “ready to meet with him at any time”.

He touted Russia’s new military might and proposed a missile “duel” with the United States in Ukraine that would show how Russia’s new Oreshnik hypersonic ballistic missile could defeat any American missile defense system. Putin suggested that both sides choose a designated target to be protected by US missiles. “We are ready for such an experiment,” he said.

Zelenskyy, who was in Brussels for talks with European leaders, said Ukraine’s “true guarantee” was Nato and that European security guarantees alone would not be enough. There was “some political will and understanding that Putin is dangerous … and total understanding that he will not stop in Ukraine”, he said.

Of Putin’s proposed missile “duel,” he asked rhetorically: “Do you think a sane person could say that? Nobody.”

Putin also used his annual event – ​​designed to project power and control by answering hand-picked questions – to address a series of sensitive developments that have tarnished Russia’s reputation.

Speaking for the first time about the fall of his close ally Assad, which threatens Moscow’s foothold in the Middle East, Putin dismissed the idea that he had suffered a major geopolitical setback.

“The situation that has arisen in Syria is not a defeat for Russia,” Putin insisted, stressing that Moscow had achieved its goal when it intervened on Assad’s side in 2015.

Putin said he had not yet seen Assad since his arrival in Moscow but planned to.

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He claimed the “overwhelming majority” of rebels who had taken control of Syria were interested in Russia keeping its military bases there, but he said Moscow was still considering whether to keep them.

When asked by a Russian refugee from the Kursk region – where Ukraine launched a surprise incursion that embarrassed Putin and his military establishment – when she could return home, the Russian leader promised to expel Ukrainian forces from the region , but refused to give a date for when this would happen.

Putin also spoke about the killing of Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov in an explosion in Moscow, a daring attack widely seen as a triumph for Ukraine’s intelligence services. Putin described Kirillov’s death as a “serious failure” by his intelligence services.

Recent polls have suggested that some people in the country are growing weary of the invasion, while the war economy has suddenly begun to show serious signs of strain.

A poll by the independent Levada Center showed that the most popular questions for Putin would be when the invasion of Ukraine would end and why prices rose so quickly.

Russia’s central bank was forced to raise its key interest rate to a historic high of 21% in October as inflation continued to weigh on the economy amid rising military spending.

Putin admitted that rising inflation in Russia – which he put at 9.3% year-on-year – was an “alarming signal”, but wages and real disposable income had also grown. “The situation is stable and safe overall,” he said.

In one of his final responses, when asked how the three-year full-scale invasion had affected him, Putin said he had “become less inclined to joke and almost stopped laughing”.

He said he did not regret his decision to launch the invasion in 2022, adding that in retrospect he would have started the war earlier and “better prepared”.

“I not only believe that I have saved (Russia), I also believe that we have moved back from the edge of the abyss,” Putin said.

Additional reporting by Jennifer Rankin in Brussels