MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Moscow\u2019s troops were advancing across the battlefield in Ukraine, voicing confidence that the Kremlin\u2019s military goals would be achieved.<\/p>\n
Speaking at his highly orchestrated year-end news conference, Putin declared that Russian forces have \u201cfully seized strategic initiative\u201d and would make more gains by the year\u2019s end.<\/p>\n
Russia\u2019s larger, better-equipped army has made slow but steady progress in Ukraine in recent months.<\/p>\n
The annual live news conference is combined with a nationwide call-in show that offers Russians across the country the opportunity to ask questions of Putin, who has led the country for 25 years. Putin has used it to cement his power and air his views on domestic and global affairs.<\/p>\n
This year, observers are watching for Putin\u2019s remarks on Ukraine and the US-backed peace plan there.<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump has unleashed an extensive diplomatic push to end nearly four years of fighting after Russia sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022, but Washington\u2019s efforts have run into sharply conflicting demands by Moscow and Kyiv.<\/p>\n
Putin reaffirmed that Moscow was ready for a peaceful settlement that would address the \u201croot causes\u201d of the conflict, a reference to the Kremlin\u2019s tough conditions for a deal.<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, Putin warned this week that Moscow would seek to extend its gains in Ukraine if Kyiv and its Western allies reject the Kremlin\u2019s demands.<\/p>\n
The Russian leader wants all the areas in four key regions captured by his forces, as well as the Crimean Peninsula, which was illegally annexed in 2014, to be recognized as Russian territory. He also has insisted that Ukraine withdraw from some areas in eastern Ukraine that Moscow\u2019s forces haven\u2019t captured yet \u2014 demands Kyiv has rejected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Moscow\u2019s troops were advancing across the battlefield in Ukraine, voicing confidence that the Kremlin\u2019s military goals would be achieved. Speaking at his highly orchestrated year-end news conference, Putin declared that Russian forces have \u201cfully seized strategic initiative\u201d and would make more gains by the year\u2019s end. Russia\u2019s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":91249,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91234"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91250,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91234\/revisions\/91250"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}