On Friday, June 20, Russian President Vladimir Putin intensified his rhetoric about the war in Ukraine, saying all of Ukraine belongs to Russia. In response, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said the statement is meant to “divert public attention away from the complete failure of [Putin’s] quarter-century rule.”
‘All of Ukraine is ours’
During his address to the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on Friday, Putin said that Russians and Ukrainians are “one people,” adding, “In this sense, all of Ukraine is ours.” He went on to say that Ukraine is free to assert its independence and sovereignty; however, according to terms agreed upon during the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, so too did Ukraine assert its neutrality –– a stance the Russian president accuses Kyiv of abandoning.
Since the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has occupied four of the nation’s territories, including Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. In 2014, Moscow annexed another autonomous region, Crimea.
On Friday, Putin said, “Where the foot of a Russian soldier steps, that is ours,” suggesting his government has no intention of returning occupied territories to Ukraine if, and when, the current fighting concludes.
Zelenskyy calls Putin’s peace talk ‘cynical’
Even before his most recent remarks, Sybiha and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy have repeatedly called Putin’s words and actions “cynical,” saying they reflect an unwillingness and lack of seriousness on the part of Moscow to bring the three-year war to an end –– despite ongoing efforts from the U.S.
To further illustrate his point, Zelenskyy said Saturday, June 21, that during recent exchanges of dead soldiers, Kyiv received at least 20 bodies of Russian nationals.
“They threw the corpses of their citizens at us. This is their attitude toward war, toward their soldiers. And this is already documented,” Zelenskyy said. “Sometimes these bodies even have Russian passports.” Journalists were shown the passport and ID of one of the dead soldiers, which suggested he came from the Moscow region.
Zelenskyy maintains that Putin is not interested in a ceasefire or peace negotiations, and is simply “putting on a performance” to avoid stronger Western sanctions. “Yesterday, everyone heard the signals from Russia’s leader,” Zelenskyy wrote on social media on Saturday. “Putin put on a performance, particularly for the United States too. He wants all of Ukraine, and had wanted it not just for four years, not since 2014, but long before that.”
Russian offensives continue from Kharkiv to Sumy
Putin’s increased rhetoric occurred on the same day that Russian drones hit two significant Ukrainian cities, Odesa and Kharkiv, killing at least one person and injuring almost two dozen others, including two girls aged 17 and 12.
The Russian military is also continuing to launch an incursion into the Ukrainian border city of Sumy, saying it wants to establish a buffer zone. However, Putin has also said he could take Sumy if he wanted to.
“We have no objective to take Sumy but, in principle, I do not rule it out,” Putin said Friday.
Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that a date for a new round of peace negotiations should be decided upon next week, following a failed round of talks in early June.
Similarly, Ukraine has been largely left out of an upcoming NATO summit, which one analyst called a “nothingburger.”
“The summit itself is a bit of a nothingburger,” said Jan Techau, senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis. “They’ve gotten everything out, including the Russia strategy that was supposed to be written. That was to keep the peace. Ukraine is almost completely out of this summit now.”