President Vladimir Putin has stated that Russia is ready to conduct talks that could end the war in Ukraine, a message that comes at a time when Moscow is attacking the country with particular virulence in a clear sign that peace is not possible. imminent. Putin has said in an interview on state television, excerpts of which were published on Sunday afternoon, that Russia is “ready to negotiate some acceptable results with all participants in this process.”
The Russian president has indicated that “it is not us who are rejecting the talks, it is them,” something the Kremlin has repeatedly asserted in recent months as its invasion continued to lose momentum. Putin has also repeated that Moscow “has no choice” and has noted that he believed the Kremlin was “acting in the right direction.” “We are defending our national interests, the interests of our citizens, our people,” he said. Putin’s comments come as attacks on Ukraine continue.
The Russian president denounces that it is the Ukrainians who reject the talks
A nationwide airstrike alert was announced twice on Sunday alone, with three missiles hitting the town of Kramatorsk in the partially occupied Donetsk region, local officials said. The missiles hit an industrial area of the city and there were no casualties, according to the Ukrainian governor of Donetsk, Pavlo Kyrylenko. Kyrylenko said the city of Avdiivka was also hit by six shells on Sunday and a woman was injured there.
Elsewhere in the region, around the town of Bakhmut, where fierce battles have been fought in recent weeks, Russian forces were struggling to keep up their offensive, a group of experts based in Russia said this weekend. USA.
A protester holds a banner depicting the bloodied face of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“The rate of advance of the Russian forces in the Bakhmut area has probably slowed down in recent days, although it is too early to assess whether the Russian offensive to capture Bakhmut has culminated,” the Institute for the Study of War wrote in your recent update.
The think tank cited Russian military bloggers, who said they recently acknowledged “that Ukrainian forces in the Bakhmut area have managed to slightly slow down the pace of the Russian advance around Bakhmut and surrounding settlements.”
Putin’s words contrast with the escalation of Russian attacks
Sources on Ukrainian social media “previously claimed that Ukrainian forces completely drove Russian forces out of the eastern outskirts of Bakhmut” around December 21, the report added. “Russian forces will likely have difficulty keeping up with their offensive operations in the Bakhmut area and may attempt to initiate a tactical or operational pause,” the institute concluded.
A day earlier, a brutal Russian attack on the southern city of Kherson, retaken by Ukrainian forces last month, killed and wounded dozens of people. Russian forces shelled Ukrainian-controlled areas of the partially occupied Kherson region 71 times in the past 24 hours, including 41 attacks on the city of Kherson, the region’s Ukrainian governor Yaroslav Yanushevich said on Sunday.
A total of 16 people have been killed, according to the president, including three emergency workers killed in the process of demining the region’s Berislav district. Yanushevich said 64 more have been injured. In the neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region, the city of Nikopol was shelled overnight by heavy artillery, Governor Valentyn Reznichenko said.
A protester holds a banner depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin reading ‘No war, no Putin’, in Belgrade.
Propaganda
Russian television ironizes that Europeans have to eat their pets
Russian state television, Russia Today, has released an ad in which it is ironic about the situation Europe is in from an energy point of view as a result of the war in Ukraine. In the ad, a group of actors play a European family that celebrates Christmas in a very precarious way, without light or heating, and managing to light up their home. In the video, he is also ironic with a worsening evolution of his conditions, arriving at Christmas 2023 to eat his pet, who months before helped them get electricity.
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