Putin: ‘Our aim is to end this war’

Russian President Vladimir Putin told the journalists that Russia’s aim is to finish the war with Ukraine as quickly as possible.

“Our aim,” he said, “is not to speed up the flywheel of military conflict, but, on the contrary, to end this war, and we try, and will keep trying, to achieve this.” “We’re going to try to end all this. And the sooner, the better, of course,” he added.

Russia, Putin emphasized, is not turning away from peace talks with Ukraine. “All armed conflicts,” he said,

end, one way or another, with some sort of talks on the diplomatic track. And we have never refused to do this. It’s the Ukrainian leadership that has forbidden itself to take part in talks. All the same, sooner or later, sides to any conflict will sit down and negotiate. The sooner this realization dawns on our opponents, the better. We ourselves have never refused this.

Ordinarily, Russian authorities use the phrase “special military operation” for the war in Ukraine, to avoid the suggestion of having started an aggressive war. Putin mentioned “war” in connection with the conflict in the Donbas, which started in 2014 and has been used to justify the invasion in the state-controlled Russian media.