Russian President Vladimir Putin said on the 22nd of December that he wants to end the war, and this will inevitably require a diplomatic solution, writes Reuters.
Putin announced this after US President Joe Biden welcomed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to the White House. The United States has promised to continue supporting Ukraine so that it can resist Russian aggression. Putin reacted to this by announcing to the media that Russia does not want to continue the war, on the contrary – it wants to end it through negotiations as soon as possible.
The representative of the White House, John Kirby, however, stated that there are no signs that Putin would like to sit down at the negotiating table and end the war, which he started on the 24th of February.
«Everything he is doing on the ground and in the air bespeaks a man who wants to continue to visit violence upon the Ukrainian people,»
Kirby said, adding that Putin wants to escalate the war.
The representative of the White House reminded that Biden was ready for talks with Putin. While Russia has also indicated it is open to talks, Ukraine and its allies see it as a stalling strategy and there are no serious signs it is ready to end hostilities.
Moscow says that Ukraine refuses to talk. Kyiv, in turn, has announced that Russia should leave the occupied territory and stop attacks. In response to the news that the United States will supply Patriot systems to Ukraine, Putin began to boast about Russian equipment and stated that the Patriot systems are quite old technology. Likewise, the Russian economy will not be affected by the oil price ceiling set by Western countries.
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