Russian President, Vladimir Putin has reaffirmed his goals for invading Ukraine, saying, “They haven’t changed.”
He said this in response to a question thrown at him during his year-end press conference held today, Thursday, December 14, 2023.
For most of his 24 years in power, Putin has held similar media events, where journalists or carefully-selected Russians are hand-picked to ask him questions on national television
The last such news conference was in 2021. The Kremlin cancelled last year’s event after a series of embarrassing military defeats in Ukraine.
The resumption of the press conference this year, with both members of the public and journalists in a single format, indicates the Kremlin is hoping to show that its Ukraine strategy is back on track and that Putin is firmly in control.
He stated that Russia’s sovereignty is under threat and that “the very existence of our country without sovereignty is impossible.”
“The whole country cannot exist without sovereignty,” he added.
A state television anchor, asked, “When will there be peace?”
To this Putin replied, “There will be peace when we achieve our goals.”
“They haven’t changed. Denazification of Ukraine, the demilitarisation of Ukraine,” he added.
When asked if there is to be a new round of mobilisation in Russia, Putin stated that Russia has enough men under arms and willing conscripts at the moment to raise the size of the Russian armed forces to 500,000 by the year’s end.
He said, “Why do we need a mobilisation? There’s no need for a mobilisation today.”
Putin also claimed that military aid to Ukraine from the west was drying up and that the country would soon run out of foreign arms to resist the Russian invasion.
“Ukraine produces nearly nothing, everything is coming from the west, but the free things will run out some day, and it seems it is already happening,” he says.
Putin disclosed that a total of 617,000 Russian troops are currently fighting in Ukraine.
Some 244,000 of them are soldiers who were called up to fight alongside professional Russian military troops, according to the president.
He said 1,500 men were being recruited into the army every day across the country. As of Wednesday evening, he said a total of 486,000 soldiers had signed a contract with the Russian military.
Putin Says West Responsible For Tense Ties
Moreover, Putin blamed the west for “spoiling relations” with Russia.
He also defended that Russia has done nothing wrong in its invasion of Ukraine.
“We didn’t ruin relations with the west,” he said as he delved into a long lecture on the Kremlin’s view of Ukrainian history.
“They ruined relations with us and they always tried to push us into second or third place ignoring our interests,” he stressed.
Recounting the history of the 2014 Ukrainian revolution, the Russian President said, “they left us no choice in our actions.”
Nonetheless, Putin said that he is open to repairing relations with Europe and the United States.
Decrying the United States’ “imperialist” behaviour, he said: “We’re ready to arrange relations with them … We think the US is an important, needed country in the world. But their imperial politics hamper them.”
He also offered praise for the Hungarian leader, Victor Orban, and Slovakia’s populist Prime Minister, Robert Fico.
Orban in particular has held up EU aid to Ukraine as he pushes Brussels to release billions of euros in aid held up due to rule-of-law concerns.
“They’re not pro Russian politicians,” he said of Orbán and Fico.
“They’re pro-nationalist,” he noted.
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