Putin: Russia-Ukraine peace talks have reached a dead end

• Peace talks between Russia and Ukraine have reached a dead end, said Russian President Vladimir Putin.
• Putin defended the attacks against Ukraine as “noble” and said that the reports on Russia’s war crimes are fake.
• He declared that complete isolation of Russia is impossible, and touted the Soviet’s accomplishments.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has considered the peace talks with Ukraine at a dead end.

In his first public comments since Russian forces retreated from northern Ukraine, Putin vowed his nation’s victory and chided the West for failing to bring them down.

Putin blamed Ukraine for derailing the peace talks, accusing Ukrainians of demanding security guarantees for the whole of Ukraine and making fake claims of Russian war crimes.

Speaking at a news briefing at the Vostochny Cosmodrome, Putin remarked, “We have again returned to a dead-end situation for us.”

Putin declared that he doesn’t have “any doubt at all” that the operation in Ukraine will continue “rhythmically and calmly,” and would end in Russia’s victory.

Putin, Russia’s paramount leader since 1999, defended the attacks against Ukraine as “noble.” He said that they had no choice but to fight for the defense of the Russian speakers of eastern Ukraine and to prevent its neighbor from becoming an anti-Russian springboard for Moscow’s enemies.

The war on Ukraine has been condemned by the West as a brutal imperial-style land grab. Ukrainians have been fighting for their survival and sovereignty after Putin annexed Crimea in 2014 and recognized two of its rebel regions as separate sovereign nations on Feb. 21.

The West responded by continuously imposing sanctions against Russia, which led to its worst recession since the fall of the Soviet Union.

But Putin dismissed the sanctions, saying they “did not work.” He added, “The United States is ready to fight with Russia until the last Ukrainian — that is the way it is.”

“The sanctions were total, the isolation was complete but the Soviet Union was still first in space,” he said, referring to Yuri Gagarin’s feat as the first man in space.

Putin declared, “We don’t intend to be isolated. It is impossible to severely isolate anyone in the modern world — especially such a vast country as Russia.”

Ukrainian troops and journalists have seen corpses of civilians in towns and villages after Russian troops withdrew, particularly in the town of Bucha. Ukraine accused Russia of genocide, while U.S. President Joe Biden called for a trial on Russia’s war crimes.

Putin dismissed the claims as fakes.

He then pointed out how a “Syrian city was turned to rubble by American aircraft” with corpses lying in the ruins for months, but “nobody cared” or noticed.

Putin cited claims of the use of chemical weapons in Syria turning out to be fake, and said that the claims of war crimes in Bucha are similarly fake.

Putin seems to view the operation in Ukraine to end in an inevitable confrontation with the United States, which he accuses of meddling in Russian affairs.

Source: Reuters