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Russian President Vladimir Putin has reaffirmed Moscow’s readiness to resume trilateral talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis. At the same time, he strongly criticised what he described as European countries’ “war threats”, calling their behaviour “political schizophrenia”.
Putin made the remarks in a recent exclusive interview with a journalist, according to Russia’s TASS news agency.
In his comments, Putin described Ukraine as a “brotherly nation”. Referring to recent genetic research, he claimed that Russians and Ukrainians are essentially “one people”.
However, he sharply criticised the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, accusing the authorities in Kyiv of using their own citizens as “cannon fodder”.
Putin alleged that ordinary people were being taken off the streets and forcibly sent to the front lines, despite having no psychological motivation to fight.
Commenting on what he called European countries’ scare tactics over alleged Russian aggression, Putin said Europe’s repeated warnings about preparing for war with Russia amounted to “political schizophrenia”.
“Despite Europe’s various statements about the so-called Russian threat, it is now clear that they will never be able to defeat Russia militarily,” he said.
Putin added that those who had sought to defeat Russia in the past, as well as those attempting to do so now, would eventually realise that maintaining friendly relations with Russia was preferable to hostility.
