The Kremlin has increased pressure on Ukraine by threatening to intensify its territorial demands. All of President Vladimir Putin’s peace initiatives are also tied to the current circumstances at the front, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov in an interview for Russian state television, which the Kremlin-affiliated reporter Pavel Zarubin published in advance on Telegram on Sunday. “Every time they get worse for Ukraine.” The dynamics at the front show that the situation for Kyiv will continue to deteriorate. A responsible politician would therefore consider Putin’s offer, Peskov said.
At the same time, he stated that the Kremlin has no interest in concluding a contract with Ukrainian President Volodymyr SelenskyjAfter his term of office expired, he was no longer a legitimate representative of Kiev. Ukraine was unable to hold elections due to Russia’s war of aggression and the occupation of parts of the country. However, according to Ukrainian lawyers, martial law covers the extension of Zelensky’s powers. The thesis repeatedly put forward by Moscow is probably intended to cause unrest within Ukraine and also to question Zelensky’s credibility in foreign policy.
A few days ago, Putin demanded the complete withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the Kherson, Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhia regions as a precondition for negotiations. Moscow claims this territory for itself – as does Crimea, which was annexed in 2014 – even though Russian troops have only partially controlled it so far. Ukraine has rejected the Kremlin’s demands as absurd and manipulative. “Putin is not seeking peace, he wants to divide the world,” said a statement from the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry. He is trying to portray himself as a peacemaker in the war he himself started. In the West, too, Putin’s demands were largely rejected as a “dictated peace.”
