Days after declaring ‘whole of Ukraine is ours', Putin says peace talks with Kyiv are ‘nowhere close' to success
Just days after asserting that 'the whole of Ukraine is ours,' Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted Saturday, that peace negotiations with Kyiv remain stalled, calling the positions of both sides 'absolutely contradictory.'
Putin, whose remarks came during a press conference in Minsk, said that written proposals exchanged during earlier talks in Istanbul this month had failed to bring the two countries any closer to a ceasefire, adding that negotiations 'are being conducted to try to bring these positions closer, ' according to The Moscow Times. However, he gave no indication that Russia was willing to compromise on its territorial demands.
This came barely a week after Putin made an incendiary speech on June 20 at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, as reported by Reuters, in which he reiterated his belief that Russians and Ukrainians are 'one people' and declared, 'in that sense, the whole of Ukraine is ours.' He also warned that Russian troops could soon move to take the Ukrainian city of Sumy to create a buffer zone, though he claimed this was not yet a specific military objective.
Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha blasted the remarks, accusing Putin of showing 'complete disdain' for US-backed peace efforts. 'Russia's top war criminal discusses plans to seize more Ukrainian territory and kill more Ukrainians,' he said.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in a nightly address, said Russia was not interested in a ceasefire and instead intended to escalate. He noted that Russian forces had 'various plans and intentions, completely mad as always,' particularly in the northern Sumy region, where Ukrainian forces were resisting.
Russia currently occupies about a fifth of Ukraine, including Crimea, nearly all of Luhansk, and large portions of Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia, along with parts of Sumy and Kharkiv.
According to The Moscow Times, Putin also said Russia is prepared to continue limited dialogue, including further prisoner swaps. More than 1,000 soldiers have already been exchanged, and Putin claimed Moscow was ready to return the bodies of 3,000 dead Ukrainian soldiers.
However, Russia's broader demands remain unchanged: Kyiv must cede more territory and abandon Western military assistance — conditions Ukraine has repeatedly rejected as tantamount to surrender.
Putin also acknowledged the toll the war has taken on Russia's economy, stating that defence spending now stands at 6.3% of GDP — around 13.5 trillion rubles ($172 billion). 'We paid for it with inflation, but now we are fighting this inflation,' he said.
He further criticised NATO for pledging to raise member defence spending to 5% of GDP, calling the move 'aggressive.'
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