Paris (France) (AFP) – Despite growing economic trouble and rising unease among ordinary Russians and the elite, President Vladimir Putin is not ready to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine, his former prime minister said on Saturday.
Speaking to AFP in an interview, Mikhail Kasyanov, Russia’s prime minister from 2000 to 2004, said he believed his former boss understood he had made a mistake by invading Ukraine in 2022 but would persist with the course he had set.
“He made a mistake that he cannot bring himself to admit,” Kasyanov, 68, said in Paris. “He believed the reports from his security services that Ukraine was weak.”
The former prime minister said he was not convinced the war would end next year, adding that Putin was buoyed by high oil prices resulting from the US-Iran conflict and by disagreements between the United States and Europe over how to deal with the Kremlin on Ukraine.
“Putin is, of course, rubbing his hands with glee,” Kasyanov said. “He clearly believes he can continue the war without making any concessions. And he is convinced that he is winning a war of attrition against Ukraine.”
He warned that the coming winter could be particularly brutal for Ukraine, urging Western countries to apply “psychological pressure on the Kremlin” by closing ranks and urgently supply Kyiv with Patriot missile interceptors to protect skies from intensifying Russian strikes on civilian infrastructure.
Putin, a former KGB agent who turns 74 on Wednesday, has insisted that millions of Russians support Moscow’s war. Last month his ruling party won a record supermajority in elections that critics said were tightly controlled, with Putin portraying the vote as a show of support for the hostilities.
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That’s why putin and trump are besties. Well, boss and employee, anyways.
This has been the mainstream assumption for years by now.
Also I just realized that
- I already commented something very similar on another of this OP’s posts
- they always, 100%, link this one news outlet and none other
- they never comment
- they do this roughly 10 times a day, day in, day out
Blocked, and reported for being a bot without admitting it.
I think they’re in China so may have limited access to news sites in the west (and / or limited English with which to engage). There are some comments so don’t think it’s a bot but I take your point.
They can only access this one niche French news outlet?
Shit I dunno. It was a guess. The external internet is really locked down there. I’ve been.
They did post one comment in Chinese.
Edit: I checked and that site is blocked there so it’s smelly.
It could also just be a Chinese person living in France, dude.
Very true. It is a smelly number of posts from that one outlet though.
I’m a benefit of the doubt person so that’s why I was trying to figure it out as it is odd behaviour but not into bot territory for me. I won’t be blocking them like the person at the top of this comment chain as a result.
