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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