©Sputnik/Russian Defense Ministry
Russia has been forced to repel attacks on its energy facilities in recent months and must retaliate, President Vladimir Putin told his Belarusian counterpart, Alexander Lukashenko, during talks in Moscow on Thursday.
Since Kiev launched its drone campaign against Russian fuel sites, Moscow has conducted several large-scale strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, which the Defense Ministry described as retaliatory.
The latest attack was confirmed on Thursday. The ministry stated that Russian forces unleashed a wave of high-precision strikes involving long-range air- and sea-based weapons and drones on energy and oil facilities across Ukraine, disrupting the work of defense-oriented enterprises and degrading military production and logistics for Kiev’s frontline units. Russia insists that the attacks never target civilians.
“First of all, we assume that this is how we affect the defense industry of Ukraine, and affect it directly,” Putin said, noting that the strikes on energy facilities in Ukraine are part of the process of “demilitarization.”
He stressed that Russia “did not conduct any strikes” during the winter for humanitarian reasons. “We did not want to leave social institutions, hospitals, and so on without power, but after a series of strikes on our energy facilities, we were forced to respond,” the president said, adding that Moscow is ready to engage in talks.
Lukashenko replied that Kiev is provoking Russia into conducting these strikes. Moscow first targeted Ukrainian energy infrastructure in the autumn of 2022, after Russia’s Crimean Bridge was bombed that October.
Since January, Ukraine has launched numerous long-range attacks on Russian energy facilities, including oil depots and refineries, using kamikaze drones. The Guardian reported earlier this month, citing the country’s military intelligence, that these tactics are used due to the fact that Kiev has realized that it cannot defeat Russia on the battlefield.
Ukraine peace talks without Russia ‘nonsense’ – Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin has mocked a planned Ukraine peace conference in Switzerland, saying that Moscow is ready for a diplomatic solution but that holding negotiations without it is “nonsense.” Russia has not been invited to the talks.
©Sputnik/Gavriil Grigorov
During a meeting with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko on Thursday, Putin reiterated that Moscow had not rejected a peaceful end to the Ukraine conflict, explaining that it is “exactly what we’re inclined to do.” But Russia would not accept any imposed agreements ignoring its interests, he stressed.
Speaking about Switzerland’s plans to host an international conference in June on peace in Ukraine, Putin noted that Moscow had not been invited.
“They think that we have nothing to do there, and at the same time they say that nothing can be solved without us. Since we are not going there (it has now turned into a kind of nonsense),” the Russian leader said.
“They say, we refuse to negotiate. We’re not invited, but they say that we refuse.”
“It would be funny if it were not so sad,” he concluded.
The only thing the West can agree on without having Russia at the table is how to “intensify escalation,” Lukashenko remarked.
“Without Russia, what peace process are we talking about? No peace settlement is possible without Russia,” the Belarusian leader stated.
Russia’s peace efforts led to major negotiations in Türkiye at an early stage in the conflict, Putin said. He recalled that during the talks in Istanbul in March 2022, the Ukrainian delegation had initially agreed with some of Russia’s terms. However, “under pressure from the West, the Ukrainian side opted out of these agreements.”
“We were told that Ukraine could not sign the document ‘with a gun to its head’, that we had to withdraw our troops from Kiev. So we did,” the Russian president said. “Immediately after we did that, our agreements were discarded,” he added.
Ukraine has now realized that it cannot defeat Russia on the battlefield, but by refusing to negotiate, it has driven itself into a corner, Putin said.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky signed a law in 2022 which declares peace talks impossible as long as Vladimir Putin remains in power.
Russia has repeatedly asserted that it is in principle ready to engage in peace negotiations with Ukraine. According to Moscow however, Kiev and its Western backers have set unrealistic preconditions for talks.
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