Putin says that Russia is in a strong position in Ukraine, there is no need to compromise in negotiations

President Vladimir Putin did not lower his terms for ending the war in Ukraine on Friday and accused the European Union of attempting a “daylight robbery” of Russian assets.

Putin revealed the Kremlin’s situation during the start of the year-end news conference, a marathon convening event that usually lasts four hours.

He said he does not see readiness on the part of Ukraine to agree to a peace deal, but there are “certain signs” that they are willing to negotiate.

“The only thing I want to say is that we have been saying this: we are ready and willing to end this conflict peacefully, based on the principles I expressed last June. [2024] at the Russian Foreign Ministry, and to deal with the causes that led to this crisis,” Putin said.

Putin was referring to a speech 18 months ago in which he demanded that Ukraine abandon its desire to join the NATO military alliance and withdraw completely from four regions Russia claims as its territory.

Putin has also repeatedly said that Ukraine must limit the size of its military and give official status to the Russian language, demands he has made since the beginning of the conflict.

Russia claims to control about 19 percent of Ukraine, including the Crimean peninsula it seized in 2014, as well as most of the eastern Donbas region, most of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, and parts of four other regions.

Ukraine says it will never accept Crimea, Donbas, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia now as parts of Russia.

EU frozen goods ‘daylight robbery’ plan: Putin

After nearly four years, the war has stalled after the US pushed for a peace deal on terms that Ukraine and its European allies feared were aimed at Russia. Tensions have resulted, with Ukraine meeting separately with European leaders and Donald Trump administration officials.

Russia says it is waiting to hear from Washington how its draft peace proposals have been prepared following those talks. Putin said on Friday that he believed Trump was honest and forthright in his dealings with ending the war.

Kyiv has long called for a ceasefire and said it does not believe Putin is serious about seeking peace. Russia says it is Ukraine that refuses to come to the table.

Putin has long told local audiences that NATO’s expansion to the east is the main cause of the war because it puts his country’s survival at risk, a view the Western military alliance rejects based on agreements signed by Russia since the 1990s.

Putin said Russia was asked to make compromises at his summit with Trump in Alaska in August, although he did not elaborate on what that entailed, or what Russia was willing to give up in the talks.

Putin presented a detailed and optimistic assessment of the battlefield situation.

“Normally, immediately after our troops drove the enemy out of the Kursk region, the initiative, the strategic initiative, passed into the hands of the Russian armed forces,” he said. “What does this mean? It means that our troops are advancing along the entire line of communication, in some places quickly, in others slowly, but on all sides, the enemy is retreating.”

Ukraine says Russian gains are increasing and come at the cost of heavy casualties.

Putin was speaking hours after European Union leaders scrapped a plan to use frozen Russian assets to back loans to Ukraine, deciding to borrow money to help fund Kyiv’s defense against Russia for the next two years.

EU leaders say they have the right to use Russian assets to repay loans if Moscow defaults on war reparations.

Putin said the bloc backed out of the original plan because it would face bad consequences, and it had damaged its status as a safe haven.

“Stealing is not the right word…. Daylight robbery. Why is this robbery done? Because the consequences can be very bad for the robbers,” he said.

“This is not only tarnishing their image; it is undermining the confidence of the euro zone, and the fact that many countries, not only Russia, but especially the oil producing countries, keep their gold and foreign currency in the euro zone.”

An exchange of the dead in battle takes place

Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, after eight years of war in eastern Ukraine, sparking the biggest conflict between Moscow and the West since the Cold War.

Putin is positioning the war as a turning point in relations with the West, which he says humiliated Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 by expanding NATO and encroaching on what he sees as Moscow’s sphere of influence.

The end of the war could reconnect Russia – which holds some of the world’s largest natural resources from oil and gas to diamonds and rare earths – with the US as it seeks to refocus on competition with China, with whom Putin has forged a “borderless” relationship.

American officials say that Russia and Ukraine have suffered more than two million casualties, including the dead and wounded since the war began. Neither Russia nor Ukraine have disclosed reliable estimates of their losses.

While Putin held his press conference, Ukraine and Russia conducted a new exchange of military bodies.

Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky said Russia had handed over the remains of 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers to Ukraine and found the bodies of 26 Russian soldiers in Kyiv. Ukrainian officials have confirmed that Kyiv has recovered 1,003 bodies of soldiers killed in Russia.

They said that investigators and experts will work to do all the necessary tests and identify them.

Ukraine’s detention center posted on the Telegram app photos of several large trucks and people in protective overalls examining bodies in white sacks.