Putin: Russia ready to fight until last Ukrainian dies

Russia is ready to fight “until the last Ukrainian dies”, Vladimir Putin has declared.

In remarks that will reverberate across Europe and the US, the Russian president insisted Ukraine must surrender territory, claiming his army is “practically impossible to hold back”.

“Some people demand to keep on fighting until the last Ukrainian dies, Russia is ready for that,” Putin said during a trip to Kyrgyzstan.

“If Ukrainian forces leave the territories they hold, then we will stop combat operations. If they don’t, then we will achieve it by military means.”

He said that the latest US peace proposal, negotiated with Ukraine and its European allies, could form “the basis for future agreements”, but then dismissed Ukraine’s leadership as illegitimate and said it was “senseless” to sign anything with them.

His words suggest the Kremlin is unwilling to depart from its maximalist demands, including demands for Kyiv to relinquish the entire Donbas region, Putin’s most desired prize.

Observers said Mr Trump’s pressure on Ukraine to sign a Russia-friendly peace deal had instead emboldened the Kremlin leader to continue waging war.

Dmitri Alperovitch, the chairman of the Silverado Policy Accelerator think tank in Washington, said: “Putin clearly has no intention to compromise. He says he believes [the] Ukrainian front line is close to collapse and Ukrainian armed forces are about to lose their combat effectiveness.

“Why compromise if you think you can win outright?”

Russia controls around one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory, and the issue of occupied and unoccupied land remains the central obstacle in peace talks.

Putin repeated claims that Russian troops had encircled Ukrainian forces in Pokrovsk and Myrnograd in Donetsk, the fiercest sector of the front, saying “Krasnoarmeysk and Dimitrov are completely surrounded”, using the Russian names for the cities. He also boasted of advances in Vovchansk, Siversk and toward the logistics hub of Huliaipole.