Bluntly and publicly challenged by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the war in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday said Russia would seek to end the conflict “as soon as possible”. But then he accused Ukraine of refusing to negotiate, even though Putin had ordered the invasion and his troops are still occupying large parts of Ukrainian territory.
Putin made the remarks during an appearance with Modi in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, where they are attending a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
In a startling public rebuke, Modi told Putin, “Today’s era is not an era of war, and I spoke to you about it on the phone.”
The rare allegation showed that the 69-year-old Russian strongman is coming under extraordinary pressure from all sides. Internationally, not only from his traditional critics in the West, but also from Asian partners whom he cannot portray as beholden to the US, he faces calls for an end to the war, hammered by right-wing hawks who rage at Russia’s military stumbling blocks and call for a national draft.
Modi’s remark, as the two leaders sat in front of journalists and cameras, came a day after Putin admitted he had heard “concerns and questions” about the war from China’s President Xi Jinping at the same conference. However, Xi did not publicly voice his questions or concerns.
In response to Modi, Putin said: “I know your position on the conflict in Ukraine, your concerns that you constantly express. We will do our best to stop this as soon as possible. Unfortunately, the other side, the leadership of Ukraine, announced that it would abandon the negotiation process, saying that it wanted to achieve its goals by military means, as they say, “on the battlefield”. Nevertheless, we will always keep you informed of what is happening there.”
The Post’s Isabelle Khurshudyan explained how a new Ukrainian offensive in the north-east of the country has transformed the war with Russia. (Video: The Washington Post)
Russia has been hit hard by Western sanctions over the war and relies on continued trade with India and China, including sales of oil and natural gas, for a financial lifeline.
Xi and Modi’s questions and criticism follow a week in which Russia has suffered severe military setbacks. A Ukrainian counter-offensive pushed Russian troops out of the northeastern Kharkiv region. And Kyiv is pushing forward, urging allies to supply additional arms in hopes of turning the war decisively in its favor.
The Russian military has responded by targeting civilian infrastructure, including the power grid in the Kharkiv region, leaving dozens of settlements without electricity and running water. Putin called these attacks “a warning”.
“If the situation develops like this, the answer will be more serious,” Putin threatened in comments to Russian reporters later on Friday.
The Russian head of state also repeated his accusation that Kyiv had rejected negotiations.
“You refuse! The first condition is that they agree. But they don’t want to,” he said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday that peace talks are currently “impossible”. “We want to end the war, but the space and opportunities have changed. Society doesn’t want to talk to terrorists,” he said.
Russia and Ukraine held several rounds of peace talks in April, but efforts faltered after both sides failed to agree on the terms of the deal, blaming Ukraine, shocked by the horrifying images emerging from formerly occupied cities like Bucha Russian troops transporting war crimes out.
Putin launched the all-out invasion of Ukraine in February, and his forces first attempted to take the capital, Kyiv, in a bid to overthrow Zelenskyy’s government. That failed when Ukrainian forces pushed the Russians into a chaotic retreat.
Russia has suffered tens of thousands of victims and the war seems increasingly hopeless. Many analysts say the fighting could continue for months, if not years, despite Ukraine’s recent gains.
Russia and India have enjoyed close bilateral cooperation for years, but as with China, Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine has tested the relationship.
Moscow suffered further setbacks on Friday as it further lost its military presence in eastern and southeastern Ukraine. At least five pro-Russian officials working in the occupied Ukrainian territories died as a result of blasts and strikes that Moscow blamed on Kyiv.
In the southern port city of Kherson, which Russia captured in the early days of the invasion, several US-made HIMARS missiles destroyed a wing of the city administration building used by the occupation authorities. At least one person was killed and others injured in the strike, according to Kirill Stremousov, Russia’s deputy head of the region.
In the east, in the self-proclaimed, separatist Lugansk People’s Republic, the prosecutor general Sergei Gorenko and his deputy Ekaterina Steglenko were killed in an explosion in their offices, according to Russian state media.
And in the southeastern city of Berdyansk, Oleh Boyko, deputy head of the city’s occupation authorities, was killed along with his wife Lyudmila, who headed the local electoral commission involved in conducting a referendum — one of the sham votes Russia planned to use as a precursor to the Annexation of Ukrainian territory.
Ukraine has not yet claimed responsibility for any of these attacks.
Ukrainian Presidential Advisor Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted that the attacks “should be viewed as showdowns by local organized crime groups that failed to share looted property before a large-scale escape. Or as [Russia’s] Purging War Crimes Witnesses.”
The deaths further alarmed pro-war supporters in Moscow, who increasingly criticized the Kremlin’s strategy in Ukraine and the failures of the Russian military on the front lines. They are now calling for a general mobilization, a measure that would almost certainly provoke widespread public backlash.
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a staunch Putin ally whose three wives and daughters were recently sanctioned by the US, called on each of Russia’s 85 regions to “self-mobilize” and recruit a “minimum” of 1,000 troops.
“There is no need to wait for the Kremlin to declare martial law or sit back and wait for the end of the special military operation in Ukraine,” Kadyrov wrote on his Telegram blog.
At least eight regional leaders have backed the proposal so far. Roman Starovoit, governor of the Kursk region bordering Ukraine, said on his Telegram channel that he had sent more than 800 volunteers to Ukraine so far and that more were being recruited “to protect regional borders”.
Sergei Aksyonov, the Moscow-appointed leader of annexed Crimea, said the region had already deployed 1,200 fighters and was working on forming two more battalions.
War in Ukraine: What you need to know
The newest: Grain shipments from Ukraine are picking up speed under the deal negotiated by Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the United Nations in July. Russia’s blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports had skyrocketed food prices and raised fears of more hunger in the Middle East and Africa. At least 18 ships, including cargoes of wheat, corn and sunflower oil, have sailed.
The fight: The conflict on the ground continues as Russia uses its advantage with heavy artillery to beat Ukrainian forces that have at times been able to put up stiff resistance. In the south, Ukrainian hopes rest on the liberation of the Russian-held Kherson region and eventually Crimea, which Russia captured in 2014. Fears of a disaster at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant linger as both sides accuse each other of shelling it.
The weapons: Western arms shipments help Ukraine slow Russian advance. US-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) allow Ukrainian forces to engage further behind Russian lines against Russian artillery. Russia has used a variety of weapons against Ukraine, some of which have drawn the attention and concern of analysts.
Photos: Washington Post photographers have been on the ground since the war began – here is some of their most impressive work.
How can you help: Here are ways people in the US can help support the people of Ukraine, as well as what people around the world have donated.
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