(Moscow and Kyiv) Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday made Ukraine’s surrender a de facto condition for talks, ahead of a summit in Switzerland devoted to ways to achieve peace and from which Russia is excluded.
The master of the Kremlin, whose army has for months regained the initiative on the battlefield against Ukrainian forces lacking men and ammunition, demanded that Kyiv abandon its ambition to join NATO and withdraw its forces from the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions.
“As soon as Kyiv […] begins the effective withdrawal of troops and notifies the abandonment of its plan to join NATO, we will immediately, this very minute, issue the order to cease fire and “start negotiations,” Mr. Putin told executives of the Russian Foreign Ministry.
These demands constitute a de facto demand for capitulation by Ukraine, the objective of which is to restore its territorial integrity and maintain its sovereignty.
If Moscow has the initiative on the front, the Russian army, which has suffered considerable losses for two years, is unable to break through the Ukrainian lines and gain a decisive advantage over Ukraine.
The Kremlin proclaimed the annexation of four regions in eastern and southern Ukraine in September 2022, in addition to Crimea in 2014.
Vladimir Putin insisted on Friday that Ukraine must hand over all of these territories to Russia, even though Moscow only partially occupies them and fighting is still raging there.
The Russian president also denigrated the peace summit, from which Russia was excluded, planned in Switzerland for June 15 and 16 at the initiative of Ukraine. Kyiv hopes that the approximately 90 delegations present there will reach a consensus to increase pressure on Russia and its isolation.
Mr. Putin dismissed a “stratagem to divert everyone’s attention” from the real perpetrators of the conflict, namely, in his reading, Ukraine and the West.
Mykhaïlo Podoliak, advisor to the Ukrainian presidency, insisted that Russian demands “clash with common sense” and constitute “an offense against international law”.
Vladimir Putin also denounced the G7’s decision on Thursday to guarantee a $50 billion loan to Ukraine with future interest on Russian assets frozen since the start of the Russian offensive.
“Western countries have frozen part of Russian assets and foreign currency reserves. And now they are thinking about a legal basis to definitively appropriate them,” he declared, “even if we embellish things, theft is still theft and it will not go unpunished.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky considered it “right that it is Russia that pays”, but demanded from the G7 the outright confiscation of the 300 billion euros of assets of the Russian central bank frozen by the West for two years, which they refuse for legal reasons.
Finally, the Russian president made a surprise revelation on the objectives of the first days of his assault, he who had always affirmed that his offensive was not aimed at the conquest of Ukrainian territories.
On Friday, he said one goal was to conquer Mariupol, a port city that suffered a horrific siege in 2022, and another was to force Ukraine to grant him a land bridge across southern Ukraine to linking Russia to annexed Crimea.
He said that this claim was served on March 5, 2022 to a distinguished guest who offered his services as a mediator. The Russian president did not reveal the name of this official, but that day the then Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, was in the Kremlin.
Ukraine and Russia attacked each other with drones and missiles overnight from Thursday to Friday, injuring several people in Ukraine and damaging a fuel storage site in a Russian border region.
Both countries have stepped up cross-border air attacks in recent months, with Kyiv targeting Russian refineries and fuel depots and Moscow targeting Ukrainian power plants and gas storage facilities.
On the Russian side, anti-aircraft defenses shot down 87 Ukrainian drones during the night, 70 of which targeted the southern region of Rostov, which notably houses the headquarters of the Russian operation in Ukraine.
According to the governor of the region Vassili Goloubev, the attack did not cause any casualties, but caused power cuts in several localities.
In the Voronezh region, which borders Ukraine, “an oil depot was slightly damaged” by the fall of debris from downed drones, Governor Alexander Gusev said on Telegram.
The Ukrainian Air Force announced that it had destroyed 14 Russian missiles and 17 drones overnight.
A new wave of strikes was also underway in the morning, with Kinjal missiles flying over the Kyiv region and heading towards the Khmelnytsky region, further west, according to the same source.
The Khmelnytsky region has a military airfield that has been repeatedly targeted by Russia.
In Solyodve, near the front line in the eastern Donetsk region, “six people were injured” and about ten buildings damaged in a Russian bombardment, said Governor Vadym Filachkin.
Three people were also injured in a drone attack in the Sumy region (North-East) and several buildings were hit by a fire in the neighboring Kharkiv region, the target of a Russian ground offensive since May 10.