Vladivostok: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said that Ukraine’s leaders seem to be like “aliens”, who make ruthless decisions without regard for the people’s suffering, while praising friends and partners like India who seek to resolve the conflict.
“I sometimes get the impression that those who rule Ukraine are like aliens or foreigners… They don’t think… you see, their losses are colossal. I can’t even fathom what they will do next,” he said at the plenary of the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF), RT reported.
The Russian President recalled that his country and Ukraine had essentially reached a peace deal – based on a Ukrainian commitment to neutrality – during the Istanbul talks soon after at the beginning of the conflict, but accused Western powers of derailing these efforts as they sought Russia’s “strategic defeat”.
Ukraine’s behaviour under these circumstances raised questions, he noted.
He said that Kiev’s only option is to lower the maximum age of conscription once again and this would allow them “to recruit children, as the German Nazis did with the Hitler Youth”, in a reference to how Adolf Hitler’s regime forced teenagers into makeshift militias in the closing stages of the Second War as the Allies advanced into German territory.
“But this will not solve the problem… The next step is to call up students, to bleed the country dry. Once again, it seems that Ukrainians are not their people,” Putin said.
“They don’t really think about the country. But they disguise it with nationalist slogans, deceiving people.”
Ukraine announced general mobilisation shortly after the start of the conflict with Russia, but widespread draft-dodging and graft were reported. This spring, in a bid to recover military losses, the Ukrainian government passed two bills, one lowering the draft age from 27 to 25, and the other significantly tightening mobilisation rules.
The Russian leader also opined that the high casualties incurred by the Ukrainian military since its incursion in Russia’s Kursk Region could render its armed forces useless.
He said the Ukrainian attempt to disrupt the Russian advance with the massive attack across the border last month had backfired.
“Our military has stabilised the situation and is now gradually pushing the opponent from the border territories. More importantly, there is no resistance to our advancement (in Donbass) The opponent has weakened itself on the key axis by moving those relatively strong and well-trained units to the border areas,” he said, as per RT.
Ukraine expected Moscow to redeploy some of its forces from the east to repel the incursion in the north, but the gamble failed, as top Ukrainian general Aleksandr Syrsky recently admitted.
Putin said Russian troops had been securing more land in Donbass, which is a priority for Moscow, at a pace unseen in a long time. Meanwhile, Ukrainian troops are “suffering very high losses in manpower and hardware”.
“Because of that, (Ukraine) risks a collapse of the front line on the most important axis. The casualties may result in a loss of fighting capability of the entire armed forces, which is what we are looking to achieve,” he added.
With the Russian Defense Ministry estimating that Ukrainian casualties in the Kursk operation had surpassed 9,700 men, as well as 81 tanks, dozens of other armoured vehicles, and multiple heavy weapons, Putin told the audience that the intelligence had been confirmed by multiple sources.
He praised nations that were “sincerely interested” in resolving the conflict and its issues.
“We respect our friends and partners who I think are sincerely interested in addressing and resolving all the issues associated with the conflict (with Ukraine). China, Brazil, India… I am in contact with my partners and I have no doubt that the leaders of these countries, and we have the relations of trust and confidence with one another, will be really interested in providing a helping hand,” he said.
–IANS