Wrapping up a visit to China on Wednesday, September 3rd, President Vladimir Putin of Russia stated that his country would carry on fighting in Ukraine if a peace deal could not be reached.
Progress towards settling the three-and-a-half-year war appears to have stalled despite a flurry of diplomatic efforts from U.S. president Donald Trump, who met both his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts last month.
Putin said he thought there was “light at the end of the tunnel,” but promised to continue fighting and claimed his troops were “advancing on all fronts.”
Asked about the prospects for a deal, Putin told reporters in Beijing “let’s see how the situation develops. If not, then we will have to resolve all our tasks militarily.”
The Kremlin chief—who again ruled out an immediate meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky,— went on a long tirade questioning the Ukrainian leader’s legitimacy.
Putin said he had invited Zelensky to come to Moscow if he wanted a meeting, which a Ukrainian official described as “unacceptable.”
“Donald (Trump) asked me for such a meeting, I said: ‘Yes, it’s possible, let Zelensky come to Moscow’,” Putin said.
Putin said Russia was ready to send a more high-level delegation to peace talks with Ukraine, though declined to say who that would be. The proposals follow an earlier commitment to win international recognition of seized territory as Russian, including Crimea.
