by Guido Keller –
On the occasion of the traditional end-of-year press conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin gave ample space, among various domestic and foreign policy issues, to the Ukrainian crisis, arguing that “we are close to achieving our objectives”. The resolution of the conflict will certainly have to go through a series of negotiations and compromises, but the salient point is the openness to dealing with Kiev, as long as it is a legitimate authority. The Russian president referred to the fact that Volodymyr Zelensky’s mandate expired some time ago, as well as the fact that the 11 opposition parties were excluded from the Parliament, the Verkhovna Rada. Putin thus remarked that “we are willing to sign peace agreements, but we can only do so with those who are legitimized”, including Parliament and its president, and Zelensky himself should he be re-elected.
Only yesterday Zelensky had stated, during an interview for The Parisianthat the territories of Donbass and Crimea “are now under Russian control, and we do not have the strength to reconquer them. So we only have the diplomatic route left to bring Putin to the negotiating table.” Certainly the continuation of the conflict and destruction, the disparity of men and means, the country’s continuous indebtedness and the changing of the guard at the White House, with the consequent closure of the flow of money, oblige the Ukrainian president, who had made a law to exclude any negotiations with Putin, to find an agreement. And it is certainly not the tiny portion of Kursk invaded by the Ukrainians that guarantees him a position of strength at a negotiating table.
Putin therefore said he was ready for negotiations “without preconditions”, which “have the 2022 Istanbul process as their basis”, since “politics is the art of compromise”. He also made it known that he was available to meet US President-elect Donald Trump, who “I haven’t heard from in four years”.
In his speech, the Russian president also spoke about the murder of Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, which occurred yesterday in Moscow by the Ukrainian secret services (who claimed responsibility for it): Putin admitted serious security breaches, so “we must improve this work and not allow such serious errors.”
