Vladimir Putin suddenly announced he would be ready for peace talks with Ukraine today – but only if Kyiv obeyed his rather extreme conditions.
More than two years since invading Ukraine, the Russian president said he would be open to a ceasefire as long as Kyiv dropped its plans to join Nato – and withdrew from all the areas Russia has occupied.
Yes, that includes the whole of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.
These are four areas he annexed back in 2022, but this statement was the first time Putin admitted he wanted to make the Zaporizhzhia region part of Russia.
Speaking to his foreign ministry, Putin claimed, ”today we are making another concrete, real peace proposal” which would bring the conflict “to an end”.
According to the Russian state media outlet, TASS, Putin added: “As soon as Kiev agrees to these conditions, agrees to completely withdraw its troops from the DPR [Donetsk], LPR [Luhansk], Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions and actually launches this process, we are ready to start negotiations without delay.”
He said he expected all Western sanctions to be lifted, too.
Putin then claimed if this peace offering was rejected, “the conditions for the start of negotiations will change.”
Ukraine rejected this plan immediately – handing over Ukrainian land has always been a red line for Kyiv.
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly claimed he intends to liberate the whole of Ukraine from Russian forces.
Zelenskyy’s advisor Mykhailo Podolyak wrote on X that these proposals are a “complete sham”.
He said: “Therefore – once again – get rid of illusions and stop taking seriously the ‘proposals of Russia’ that are offensive to common sense.”
During the same speech, president also went on yet another tangent about his nuclear power.
He claimed that the West are “unacceptably close to the point of no return” and simply did “not understand the scale of the threat” they faced by continuing to aid Moscow’s enemy in the ongoing war.
Putin said: “The selfishness and arrogance of Western states has led to the current extremely dangerous state of affairs.
“We have come unacceptably close to the point of no return.
“Calls to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, which has the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons, demonstrate the extreme adventurism of Western politicians.
“They either do not understand the scale of the threat that they themselves create, or are simply obsessed with the belief in their own impunity and in their own exclusivity.
“Both of these can result in tragedy.”
The president has repeatedly accused the West of not taking his proximity to the nuclear button seriously enough.
But, Putin then seemed to change his tune as he addressed his ministers.
He started to discuss the supposed “collapse” of the “Western model” of global security – and said it was time for Europe and Asia to work together.
“It is important to proceed from the fact that the future security architecture is open to all Eurasian countries that wish to take part in its creation. ‘To all’ means European and Nato countries too, of course,” he said.
“We live on the same continent. No matter what happens, you cannot change the geography. We will have to coexist and work together one way or another.”
Meanwhile, Nigel Farage – leader of Reform UK Party and running in the general election – heaped alarming praise on the Russian authoritarian president this week.
He told BBC Radio 5 Live Putin is a “clever political operator” although he admitted he does not like him “as a human being”.