Russian president Vladimir Putin warned Thursday that Russia has not “yet started anything serious” in Ukraine, apparently threatening that the five-month long war, which has killed thousands and caused the largest migration crisis in modern European history, has not seen its worst days.
“Everyone should know, that largely speaking, we haven’t yet started anything serious in Ukraine,” Putin said, smirking, while speaking to members of the Russian parliament.
He claimed the West caused a tragedy for the Ukrainian people by getting involved in the war and wanting to fight Russia “till the last Ukrainian.” The West lost when Russia began the invasion, he continued, saying it forced a “radical breakdown of the American world order.”
Russia “doesn’t refuse peace talks,” but that those who refuse should know that the longer they take, the more difficult it will be to make a deal with him, Putin added.
Russia has demanded Ukraine make territorial concessions, including recognizing Russian sovereignty over the Crimean Peninsula, and proclaiming independence of the Russia-backed separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly said Ukraine will never concede land to Russia.
“Ukrainians are not ready to give away their land, to accept that these territories belong to Russia. This is our land,” Zelensky said in a CNN interview aired on Thursday.
Zelensky admitted that Russia now controls “almost all the Luhansk region.” Russia accelerated its offensive in eastern Ukraine after failing to capture Kyiv, the capitol in the middle of the country.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an advisor to Zelensky, responded to Putin’s claims, calling Russia’s actions “proof of deliberate genocide.”
“There is no ‘collective West’ plan. Only a specific z-army which entered sovereign , shelling cities and killing civilians. Everything else is a primitive propaganda. That’s why Mr. Putin’s mantra of the ‘war to the last Ukrainian’ is yet another proof of deliberate genocide,” Podolyak said on Twitter.