Putin says ‘the whole of Ukraine is ours’ – in theory

St Petersburg: Russian President Vladimir Putin said that in his view, the whole of Ukraine was “ours” and cautioned that advancing Russian forces could take the Ukrainian city of Sumy as part of a bid to carve out a buffer zone along the border.

Ukraine’s foreign minister denounced Putin’s statements as evidence of Russian “disdain” for US peace efforts and said Moscow was bent on seizing more territory from its neighbour and killing more Ukrainians.

Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum on Friday.Credit: AP

Russia currently controls about one-fifth of Ukraine, including Crimea, more than 99 per cent of the Luhansk region, over 70 per cent of the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, and fragments
of the Kharkiv, Sumy and Dnipropetrovsk regions.

Asked about fresh Russian advances, Putin told the St Petersburg International Economic Forum that he considered Russians and Ukrainians to be one people and “in that sense, the whole of Ukraine is ours”.

Kyiv and its Western allies say Moscow’s claims to four Ukrainian regions and Crimea are illegal, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly rejected the notion that Russians and Ukrainians are one people.

He has also said that Putin’s terms for peace are akin to capitulation.

Putin, who ordered troops into Ukraine in 2022 after eight years of fighting in eastern Ukraine, said on Friday (Saturday AEST) he was not questioning Ukraine’s independence or its people’s striving for sovereignty, but he underscored that when Ukraine declared independence as the Soviet Union fell in 1991 it had also declared its neutrality.

Putin said Moscow wanted Ukraine to accept the reality on the ground if there was to be a chance of peace – which is Russia’s shorthand for the reality of Russia’s control over a chunk of Ukrainian territory bigger than the US state of Virginia.

“We have a saying, or a parable,” Putin said. “Where the foot of a Russian soldier steps, that is ours.”

‘Complete disdain’

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, writing in English on the X social media platform, said: “Putin’s cynical statements demonstrate complete disdain for US peace efforts.

From left: Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, Putin, South African Deputy President Paul Mashatile, Sky News Arabia general manager Nadim Koteich and Bahrain’s Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa at the forum.Credit: AP

“While the United States and the rest of the world have called for an immediate end to the killing, Russia’s top war criminal discusses plans to seize more Ukrainian territory and kill more Ukrainians.”

Wherever a Russian soldier set foot, “he brings along only death, destruction, and devastation”, Sybiha said.

Zelensky, in his nightly video address, said Russia had shown “openly and utterly cynically that they ‘don’t feel like’ agreeing to a ceasefire. Russia wants to continue the war.”

Zelensky said Ukrainian commanders had discussed action in the country’s northern Sumy region and that Russia had “various plans and intentions, completely mad as always. We are holding them back and eliminating these killers, defending our Sumy region.”

Putin said Russian forces were carving out a buffer zone in the Sumy region to protect Russian territory.

“Next is the city of Sumy, the regional centre. We don’t have the task of taking it, but in principle I don’t rule it out,” he said.

Reuters

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