Vladimir Putin has said the war in Ukraine has made Russia “much stronger” and denied that the fall of his key ally Bashar al-Assad in Syria has hurt Moscow’s standing, as he held a marathon year-end press conference and television call-in seeking to project confidence at home and abroad.
Casting the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as “illegitimate”, Putin said he was ready to meet Donald Trump and discuss peace proposals to end his full-scale invasion, but he repeated his hardline stance that Moscow would keep control of Crimea together with the four Ukrainian regions he laid claim to in 2022.
The closely orchestrated end-of-year event, typically an annual cocktail of Kremlin pomp and state TV camp, lasted four and a half hours and included phone-in questions from war bloggers, pensioners, as well as regional journalists vying for the microphone in a studio in Moscow.
Putin appeared largely upbeat and confident, as his troops continued to make grinding progress in Ukraine. “The situation on the battlefield is changing drastically, with movement occurring along the entire frontline,” he boasted. “Every day our fighters are reclaiming territory by the square kilometre.”
He said the Russian military was “advancing toward achieving our goals” in what he calls the special military operation in Ukraine.
Putin said at one point that Moscow was “ready for negotiations and compromises” to end the fighting, but later he pointed to a maximalist position that would involve Ukraine not joining Nato, adopting a neutral status and undergoing some level of demilitarisation, while also demanding that the west lift its sanctions against Russia.
He indicated that the Kremlin would refuse to sign any agreements with Zelenskyy, whom he dismissed as illegitimate, and he rejected the idea of a ceasefire, instead advocating for a deal that would provide “long-term guarantees”.
With the incoming Trump administration promising to swiftly end the war in Ukraine, Moscow and Kyiv are warily considering the prospect of talks.
Keith Kellogg, the US president-elect’s nominee for special envoy to the war in Ukraine, said this week that Trump had a vision for ending the war. But a viable path to a peace deal remains elusive as Putin shows no indication of backing down from his demands, which appear to be nonstarters for Ukraine.
Despite media reports suggesting they had frequently kept in touch after Trump left office, Putin claimed he had not spoken with Trump in four years but said he was “ready to meet with him at any time”.
Touting Russia’s new military might, he suggested a missile “duel” with the United States in Ukraine that would show how Russia’s new Oreshnik hypersonic ballistic missile could defeat any American missile defence system. Putin suggested that both sides select a designated target to be protected by US missiles. “We’re ready for such an experiment,” he said.
Zelenskyy, who was in Brussels for talks with European leaders, said Ukraine’s “true guarantee” was Nato and European security guarantees on their own would not be sufficient. There was “some political will and understanding that Putin is dangerous … and total understanding that he will not stop in Ukraine,” he said.
On Putin’s proposed missile “duel”, he asked rhetorically: “Do you believe that a reasonable person could say that? No.”
Putin also used his annual event – designed to project power and control by answering hand-picked questions – to address a series of sensitive developments that have tarnished Russia’s reputation.
Speaking for the first time about the fall of his close ally Assad, which threatens Moscow’s foothold in the Middle East, Putin rejected the idea that he had suffered a major geopolitical setback.
“The situation that has occurred in Syria is not a defeat for Russia,” Putin insisted, stressing that Moscow had achieved its goal when it intervened on Assad’s side in 2015.
Putin said he had not yet seen Assad since his arrival in Moscow but that he was planning to do so.
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He claimed that the “overwhelming majority” of the rebels who had taken control of Syria were interested in Russia maintaining its military bases there, but he said Moscow was still considering whether to retain them.
When asked by a Russian refugee from the Kursk region – where Ukraine launched a surprise incursion that embarrassed Putin and his military establishment – when she could return home, the Russian leader vowed to expel Ukrainian forces from the region but refused to provide a date for when this would happen.
Putin also addressed the assassination of Lt Gen Igor Kirillov in a blast in Moscow – a bold attack widely viewed as a triumph for Ukraine’s intelligence services. Putin described the death of Kirillov as a “grave failure” of his intelligence services.
Recent polling has suggested that some people in the country are growing tired of the invasion, while the war economy has suddenly begun to show serious signs of strain.
A poll by the independent Levada Center found that the most popular questions for Putin would be when the invasion of Ukraine would end and why prices were rising so quickly.
Russia’s Central Bank was forced to raise its key interest rate to a historic high of 21% in October as inflation continued to weigh on the economy amid surging military spending.
Putin admitted that growing inflation in Russia – which he put at 9.3% year on year – was an “alarming signal” but wages and real disposable income had grown as well. “The situation is stable and secure as a whole,” he said.
In one of his final responses, when asked about how the three-year full-scale invasion had affected him, Putin said he had “become less inclined to joke and have almost stopped laughing”.
He said he had no regrets about his decision to launch the invasion in 2022, adding that in hindsight he would have started the war earlier and “better prepared.”
“Not only do I believe I saved [Russia], I believe that we’ve moved back from the edge of the abyss,” Putin said.
Additional reporting by Jennifer Rankin in Brussels