The Russian president is trying to frame Ukraine’s unprecedented actions on Russian soil as a futile attempt to distract his own military.
Vladimir Putin has described Ukraine’s cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region as a “failure”, contradicting reports that it caught his military off-guard.
Speaking at the plenary session of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok on Thursday, Putin said: “Ukraine’s goal was to make Russia transfer troops from one area to another and stop the offensive in Donbas, but they did not succeed. Ukraine is now suffering very heavy losses in manpower and equipment.”
Putin claimed that the goal of the Kursk incursion was to make Russia nervous and stop its offensive in key areas, and that this strategy did not work.
He said Russian armed forces have stabilised the situation and are gradually squeezing the Ukrainians out of the border areas. Putin also asserted that Ukraine has in fact weakened itself in key areas by transferring fairly large and well-trained units away from the front to the Russian border.
“Trump is hard on Russia”
Meanwhile, Putin offered a surprising endorsement in the US presidential race, opting for Vice President Kamala Harris over former president Donald Trump.
“Our favourite, if I can call it that, was the current president, Mr Biden, but he was removed from the race. But he recommended all his supporters support Ms Harris, so we will do the same, we will support her. She laughs so expressively and infectiously that it says that everything is fine with her.
“Trump, on the other hand, imposed so many restrictions and sanctions against Russia, as no president before him had ever done.”
BRICS enters the picture
Appearing on the panel in Vladivostok alongside Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and Chinese Vice President Han Zheng, Putin announced that he would prefer to have China, Brazil and India as mediators in Ukraine peace talks.
“We have never refused to negotiate — but not based on some temporary demands, based on the documents that were agreed upon and actually initialled in Istanbul,” Putin said.
“We respect our friends, our partners, who, I believe, are sincerely interested in resolving all issues related to this conflict.”
The government in Kyiv has stated it will not engage in direct negotiations with Russia.
