Putin changes tone on Ukraine after failed talks with Trump, Bloomberg says
Photo: Vladimir Putin (Getty Images)
Russian president Vladimir Putin is not considering a scenario in which Ukraine would regain part of the occupied territories as part of a peace agreement to end the war, reports Bloomberg.
Journalists’ Kremlin insiders spoke of a sharp change in Putin’s mood.
According to them, he realized that his meeting with US President Donald Trump in Alaska had failed.
Putin failed to achieve any desired result from the White House leader regarding Ukraine.
That is why the Kremlin chief decided to sharply change his approach and abandon the territorial “concessions” that he had previously been ready to discuss with Washington and Kyiv.
“Russian President Vladimir Putin remains committed to taking full control of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region by force and will now retain areas of Sumy and Kharkiv regions near the border with Russia as buffer zones,” anonymous Kremlin sources said.
Putin took a tougher stance amid intensified Ukrainian strikes on targets deep inside Russia, including in Moscow. Ukraine’s deep strikes triggered a large-scale fuel crisis in the aggressor country.
Another important factor is that Trump eventually supported the new bill on “bone-crushing sanctions” against Russia, proposed by the late Senator Lindsey Graham. It provides for tariffs of up to 100% on the five largest buyers of Russian oil and gas.
Despite this, Putin is still in no hurry to sit down at the negotiating table.
“Russia is prepared to return to negotiations only after Putin has achieved the objective of taking Donetsk,” Kremlin insiders claim.
Ukraine’s Defense Forces are already preparing for various scenarios in the Chernihiv-Kyiv direction.
On July 21, Zelenskyy chose Mykhailo Drapatyi as the new Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
