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Putin Asks Voters, Including in Annexed Ukrainian Areas, to Determine Russia's Future

FILE - Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures while speaking at a news conference following a meeting of the State Council at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia on Dec. 22, 2022. (Sergey Guneyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE - Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures while speaking at a news conference following a meeting of the State Council at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia on Dec. 22, 2022. (Sergey Guneyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)
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Putin Asks Voters, Including in Annexed Ukrainian Areas, to Determine Russia's Future

FILE - Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures while speaking at a news conference following a meeting of the State Council at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia on Dec. 22, 2022. (Sergey Guneyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE - Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures while speaking at a news conference following a meeting of the State Council at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia on Dec. 22, 2022. (Sergey Guneyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)

President Vladimir Putin appealed on Thursday to voters, including in annexed parts of Ukraine, to be united in determining Russia's future by casting ballots in this week's presidential election which he is all but certain to win.
"It is vital to underscore our cohesion and resolve and move forward together. Every vote you cast is valued and meaningful," Putin said in a video address first shown in the Russian far east and reported by national news agencies.
"I therefore ask you in the coming three days to exercise your right to vote."
Putin, 71 and in power as president or prime minister since 2000, faces three challengers in three days of voting beginning on Friday. None of the challengers has criticized him, Reuters reported.
Opinion polls show he is supported by a majority of Russians, with one survey last month giving him 75% support.
Two candidates who had hoped to run on a platform of calling for an end to the war in Ukraine, officially described by Russia as a "special military operation," were ruled ineligible.
In his video remarks, Putin said all voters wanted to see a strong, prosperous and free Russia "in order to raise living standards and the quality of life. And that is how it will be."
The very act of voting, Putin said, was a "demonstration of patriotic feeling". And this, he said, was particularly felt in areas of eastern and southern Ukraine now held by Russian forces - some since the launch of the February 2022 invasion, others taken over by Russian-backed separatists in 2014.
Putin sent tens of thousands of troops over the border into Ukraine in February 2022 and, after an unsuccessful initial attempt to move on the capital Kyiv, Moscow's forces have concentrated their efforts on eastern and southern Ukraine.
Ukraine recaptured large chunks of territory in late 2022, but well dug-in Russian troops have been holding their own and last month seized the eastern town of Avdiivka.
Putin said the patriotic choices were clear to residents of areas in Donbas in eastern Ukraine and Novorossiya - a tsarist term for parts of southern Ukraine - who had voted for annexation by Russia in 2022 referendums denounced by Western countries as illegal.
"(They) voted in a referendum in the most difficult of conditions for unification with Russia and will again in the coming days make their choice," Putin said.
"Those participating in the special operation will also vote. They are an examples to all Russians."

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North Korea Wants to Restart Nuclear Talks if Trump Wins, Says Ex-diplomat

US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un pose at a military demarcation line at the demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas, in Panmunjom, South Korea, June 30, 2019. KCNA via REUTERS/File Photo
US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un pose at a military demarcation line at the demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas, in Panmunjom, South Korea, June 30, 2019. KCNA via REUTERS/File Photo
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North Korea Wants to Restart Nuclear Talks if Trump Wins, Says Ex-diplomat

US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un pose at a military demarcation line at the demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas, in Panmunjom, South Korea, June 30, 2019. KCNA via REUTERS/File Photo
US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un pose at a military demarcation line at the demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas, in Panmunjom, South Korea, June 30, 2019. KCNA via REUTERS/File Photo

North Korea wants to reopen nuclear talks with the United States if Donald Trump is re-elected as president and is working to devise a new negotiating strategy, a senior North Korean diplomat who recently defected to South Korea told Reuters.
The escape of Ri Il Gyu from Cuba made headlines globally last month. He was the highest-ranking North Korean diplomat to defect to the South since 2016.
In his first interview with international media, Ri said North Korea has set Russia, the US and Japan as its top foreign policy priorities for this year and beyond.
While bolstering relations with Russia, Pyongyang was keen to reopen nuclear negotiations if Trump - who engaged in both fiery brinkmanship and unprecedented diplomacy with North Korea during his previous term - won re-election in November, Ri said.
Pyongyang's diplomats were mapping out a strategy for that scenario, with the goal of lifting of sanctions on its weapons programs, removing its designation as a state sponsor of terrorism and eliciting economic aid, said Ri.
His comments signal a potential about-face from the North's current stance after recent statements ditching the possibility of dialogue with the US and warning of armed confrontation.
A summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Trump in Vietnam in 2019 collapsed over sanctions, for which Ri partly blamed Kim's decision to entrust "inexperienced, clueless" military commanders with nuclear diplomacy.
"Kim Jong Un doesn't know much about international relations and diplomacy, or how to make strategic judgment," he said.
"This time, the foreign ministry would definitely gain power and take charge, and it won't be so easy for Trump to tie North Korea's hands and feet again for four years without giving anything."
RUSSIAN TIES, JAPAN AID
By forging closer ties with Russia, North Korea received help with its missile technology and economy. But a bigger benefit could be to block additional sanctions and undercut existing ones, Ri said, adding it would raise Pyongyang's bargaining power against Washington.
"The Russians got their own hands dirty by engaging in illicit transactions and, thanks to that, North Korea no longer needs to rely on the US to lift sanctions, which essentially means they stripped the US of one key bargaining chip," he said.
In Tokyo, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has said he wants to meet Kim, but the issue of Japanese nationals abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and 80s has long been a stumbling block.
According to Ri, Kim would seek to hold a summit with Japan, aiming to get economic assistance in return for concessions on the abductee issue.
Tokyo believes 17 of its citizens were abducted, five of whom returned to Japan in 2002. Pyongyang sees the issue as settled, having admitted to kidnapping 13 Japanese nationals and saying those unaccounted for had either died or their whereabouts were unknown.
Ri said Kim would be willing to change that position, established under his father Kim Jong Il, in order to obtain economic support.
"They're saying that the issue was resolved, but that's just to boost negotiating power until he makes concessions at a summit," he said.
RESENTMENT AND DEFECTION
Having studied at a French school in Algeria and lived in Cuba alongside his late father, who was a state media reporter, Ri says he had imagined a life in South Korea since his childhood, but never acted to flee until he was bullied by a diplomatic colleague for refusing his demand for bribes.
Then the defining moment came when Pyongyang instantly refused his request to get medical treatment in Mexico, at his own expense, for a ruptured disc in his neck.
"That exploded all the resentment I had been harboring towards the regime," he said.
The COVID-19 lockdown deepened hardships at home and for those stationed overseas, with most telephone lines to Pyongyang cut to prevent any information from spreading in the outside world, Ri said.
Financial troubles have also forced North Korea to shut down a dozen of its 54 diplomatic missions.
"When they began reopening and summoning those working abroad in early 2023, they asked to bring everything from used toothbrushes to spoons back home, saying there's nothing there," he said.
Ri had also witnessed - and in his job tried to impede - the launch of diplomatic relations between South Korea and Cuba, a Cold War-era ally of North Korea.
"I had done everything to block that from happening, but establishing relations with Cuba was the best thing South Korea had done since last year," he said. "It was a model example of how the tides of history have turned, and where a normal civilization of the international community is headed."