Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared that he believes the conflict in Ukraine is drawing to a close, making the remarks at a scaled-back Victory Day parade on Red Square in Moscow, held after a three-day ceasefire brokered by US President Donald Trump came into effect, reports RTE.
Putin presided over the most pared-back Victory Day parade in recent memory, with no military hardware on display for the first time in nearly two decades.
The annual 9 May commemoration marks the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, and Putin once again drew a direct link between that conflict and Russia’s ongoing military operation in Ukraine, reports RTE.
Following the parade, Putin told reporters he believed the matter was “coming to an end.”
When asked whether he would be willing to hold talks with European leaders, he said his preferred interlocutor was former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, and that any meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would only be considered once a lasting peace agreement had been reached, reports RTE.
The ceasefire, covering 9 to 11 May, was announced by Trump on Friday and confirmed by both the Kremlin and Zelensky, who said a prisoner exchange in the format of 1,000 for 1,000 would also take place.
Trump said he would like to see a significant extension of the ceasefire, describing the war as the worst thing to happen since World War II in terms of human life lost, reports RTE.
The Kremlin acknowledged that Washington was eager to reach a settlement but cautioned that the path to a peace agreement remained long and complicated. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that the American side was understandably in a hurry, but that resolving the Ukrainian conflict was far too complex a matter to be dealt with quickly.
Putin later said at a news conference that Russia’s warnings to Washington — that it would need to take protective measures for its diplomats in Kyiv in the event of Ukrainian strikes during the parade — had helped bring about the ceasefire deal, reports RTE.
North Korean troops, who had fought alongside Russian forces in the Kursk region, also took part in the parade, while Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was the only EU leader to visit Moscow during the Victory Day period, reports RTE.
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