Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday that he thought the Ukraine war was coming to an end, remarks that came just hours after he had vowed victory in Ukraine at Moscow's most scaled-back Victory Day parade in years.
"I think that the matter is coming to an end," Putin told reporters of the Russia-Ukraine war, Europe's deadliest conflict since World War Two. He also said he would be willing to negotiate new security arrangements for Europe, and that his preferred negotiating partner would be Germany's former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.
Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine triggered the most serious crisis in relations between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when many people feared the world was on the brink of nuclear war.
The Kremlin has said peace talks brokered by US President Donald Trump's administration were on pause. Putin has repeatedly vowed to fight on until all of Russia's various war aims are achieved in what Moscow calls the "special military operation".
Putin was speaking in the Kremlin after setting out his view of the causes of the war. He blamed "globalist" Western leaders, saying they promised NATO would not expand eastward after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, but then tried to draw Ukraine into the European Union's orbit.
His statement came just hours after the parade on the May 9 national holiday celebrating the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two. The annual event pays homage to the 27 million Soviet citizens who perished in that war.
Instead of the usual intercontinental ballistic missiles, tanks and missile systems rolling across the cobbles of Red Square, Russia played a video of its military hardware in action on giant screens opposite the Kremlin walls.
Russian troops have been fighting in Ukraine for well over four years. That is longer than Soviet forces fought in World War Two, known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45.
WAR IN EUROPE
Putin, who has ruled Russia as president or prime minister since the last day of 1999, faces a wave of anxiety in Moscow about the war in Ukraine, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people, left swathes of Ukraine in ruins, and drained Russia's $3 trillion economy. Russia's relations with Europe are worse than at any time since the depths of the Cold War.
Russian forces have so far been unable to take the whole of the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine where Kyiv's forces have been pushed back to a line of fortress cities. Russian advances have slowed this year, though Moscow controls just under one fifth of Ukrainian territory.
After Russia and Ukraine accused each other of violating unilateral ceasefires they had each declared over recent days, US President Donald Trump announced a three-day ceasefire from Saturday to Monday that was supported by the Kremlin and Kyiv. The two sides also agreed to exchange 1,000 prisoners.
"I'd like to see it stop. Russia-Ukraine - it's the worst thing since World War Two in terms of life. Twenty-five thousand young soldiers every month. It's crazy," Trump told reporters in Washington.
He added that he would "like to see a big extension" of the ceasefire. There were no reports of violations of the ceasefire from either Moscow or Kyiv.
TALKS WITH SCHROEDER?
European Council President Antonio Costa said last week he believed there was "potential" for the EU to negotiate with Russia, and to discuss the future of the security architecture of Europe.
Asked if he was willing to engage in talks with the Europeans, Putin said the preferable figure for him was Schroeder.
"For me personally, the former Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Mr. Schroeder, is preferable," Putin said.
European leaders have said Russia must be defeated in Ukraine and cast Putin as a war criminal and autocrat who they say could one day attack a NATO member if he is allowed to win the war. Russia dismisses such claims as nonsense.
Putin, who ordered troops into Ukraine in February 2022, casts European powers as warmongers for supporting Ukraine with tens of billions of dollars in support, weapons and intelligence.
Asked about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Putin said a meeting was possible only once a lasting peace deal was agreed.
