By Vladimir Soldatkin and Dmitry Antonov
Moscow (Reuters) – Russia will seek a peace agreement in Ukraine which protects its own long -term security and will not withdraw from the gains he made in the conflict, said President Vladimir Putin Thursday in comments to parents of soldiers who are killed there.
Putin also made an indirect blow to French President Emmanuel Macron, saying that Western leaders should not underestimate the Russian people and keep in mind the fate of Napoleon Bonaparte, whose invasion of Russia in 1812 ended with a catastrophe.
“We must choose a peace option for ourselves that will suit us and which will ensure peace in our country in the long term,” Putin told a group of Russian women who have lost dear beings during the three-year war in Ukraine.
Questioned by the mother of a soldier who fell if Russia withdrew, Putin said he did not intend to do so. Russia currently controls just under a fifth of Ukraine – about 113,000 square km.
Sometimes, during the meeting, some women suffered tears.
US President Donald Trump has upset Western Ukraine War Policy, opening bilateral talks with Moscow and interrupting military aid in kyiv after facing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy at the White House last week.
Reuters reported in November that Putin was open to discussing a peace agreement in Ukraine with Trump, but excluded all the major territorial concessions and would insist that Kyiv abandoned the ambitions to join NATO.
In the comments of last summer, exhibiting its conditions to end the war, Putin also declared that Ukraine had to withdraw all its forces from the entire territory of four Ukrainian regions claimed and partially controlled by Russia.
Macron Mocked
The dramatic change in Trump’s American policy on Ukraine has raised hopes for peace talks, but also alarmed the European Washington allies who reaffirmed their support for kyiv.
Macron, France, made Moscow angry on Wednesday when he declared in a speech to the nation that Russia was a threat to Europe.
Macron said Paris could discuss the extension of its nuclear umbrella to the Allies and that it would hold a meeting of the military’s heads of European countries wishing to send peacekeeping troops to Ukraine after any peace agreement.
Russia made fun of Macron, the appellant “Micron”. The Russian cartoons threw him as the French emperor Napoleon heading towards defeat in Russia in 1812.
“There are still people who want to return to Napoleon’s time, they forget how it ended,” said Putin on Thursday, without mentioning Macron by name.
“All the errors of our enemies and adversaries began with this: by underestimating the character of the Russian people and representatives of Russian culture in general,” added Putin.
(Report by Vladimir soldierkin and Dmitry Antonov; writing by Maxim Rodionov; edition by Guy Faulconbridge and Gareth Jones)
