Russian president Vladimir Putin said on Saturday that he thought the Ukraine conflict was coming to an end.
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.
“I think that the matter is coming to an end,” Putin told reporters of the Ukraine war.
Putin was speaking in the Kremlin after Russia held its most scaled-back Victory Day parade in years. The May 9th national holiday celebrates the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in the second World War and pays homage to the 27 million Soviet citizens who perished in the war.
Victory in Ukraine, though, has been elusive for Russia.
During four years of the deadliest European conflict since the second World 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.
The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, left swathes of Ukraine in ruins and drained Russia’s $3 trillion economy, while Russia’s relations with Europe are worse than at any time since the depths of the Cold War.
The Financial Times reported on Thursday that European Union leaders were preparing for potential talks.
Asked if he was willing to engage in talks with the Europeans, he said the preferable figure for him was former Germany’s Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.
“For me personally, the former chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Mr Schroeder, is preferable,” Putin said.
The Kremlin said last week that it was for European governments to make the first move, as they were the ones who severed contact with Moscow in 2022 after the start of the war in Ukraine.
When asked about Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Putin said a meeting was possible only once a lasting peace deal was agreed.
Earlier on Saturday, Putin presided over a notably scaled-back Victory Day parade on Moscow’s Red Square on Saturday, as a three-day ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine began on the same day.
The ceremony lasted just 45 minutes – roughly half the length of previous years – as security fears and the realities of a grinding war in Ukraine cast a shadow over the Russian holiday.
The Russian president struck a defiant tone, invoking the sacrifices of the second World War to rally support for his troops in Ukraine.
“Victory has always been and will always be ours,” he told the crowd, using the celebration to draw his now-familiar – and historically false – parallel between the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany and his invasion of Ukraine.
Security was tight in Moscow as Putin and several foreign leaders attended the parade, even as a US-brokered three-day ceasefire eased concerns about possible Ukrainian attempts to disrupt the festivities.
A three-day ceasefire that began on Saturday will include “a suspension of all “kinetic [physical military] activity” and a swap of 1,000 prisoners from each country. Although it was first announced by Donald Trump on social media, it has since been confirmed by both sides.
Putin, in power for more than a quarter of a century, used Russia’s most important secular holiday to rally support for his war in Ukraine.
Speaking at the parade, Putin hailed Russian troops fighting in Ukraine, declaring that they “face an aggressive force that is armed and supported by the entire bloc of Nato”.
“The key to success is our moral strength, courage and valour, our unity and ability to endure anything and overcome any challenge.”
But this year, for the first time in nearly two decades, the parade took place without tanks, missiles and other heavy weapons, aside from a traditional flyover of combat jets.
The customary display of missiles and armoured vehicles was absent, replaced by a video showcasing Russia’s drone capabilities and nuclear arsenal.
The audience included only a small delegation of foreign leaders from Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Laos and Malaysia.
They watched a column of North Korean soldiers march across the square, troops from one of Russia’s closest allies who have fought alongside Russian forces in Ukraine.
Moscow was blanketed in heavy security, with internet services switched off across the city.
Russian authorities openly acknowledged the measures were designed specifically to protect Putin, an admission that underscored how dramatically the calculus of a war Russia once expected to win in weeks has shifted.
Officials said the sudden change of format was due to the “current operational situation” and pointed to the threat of Ukrainian attacks. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the authorities have taken “additional security measures”.
Trump announced on Friday that Russia and Ukraine had bowed to his request for a ceasefire running from Saturday to Monday and an exchange of prisoners, declaring that the break in fighting could be the “beginning of the end” of the war.
Zelenskiy, who said earlier this week that the Russian authorities “fear drones may buzz over Red Square” on May 9th, followed up on Trump’s statement by issuing a decree mockingly permitting Russia to hold its Victory Day celebrations on Saturday, declaring Red Square temporarily off-limits for Ukrainian strikes.
Russian authorities had warned that if Ukraine attempted to disrupt Saturday’s festivities, Russia would carry out a “massive missile strike on the centre of Kyiv”.
Russia’s bigger and better-equipped military has been making slow but steady gains along the more than almost 1,000km-front line.
However, Ukraine has hit back with increasingly efficient long-range attacks, striking Russian energy facilities, manufacturing plants and military depots. It has developed drones capable of reaching targets more than 1,000km deep into Russia, far beyond its capabilities before 2022. – Agencies