Russia would totally eliminate European opponents and be left with “nobody to negotiate with” if war came, Putin said in belligerent remarks, while simultaneously emphasising his position that Russia is in fact peaceful and wants no conflict.
President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin threw out fresh remarks shortly before entering a high-level negotiation with the United State’s Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner on Tuesday evening, targeting Europe and blaming the continent’s NATO members for slowing the peace process.
Claiming for Russia a somewhat dovish disposition and insisting that should any future conflict come, it would be Europe’s fault and not Moscow’s, President Putin nevertheless said Russia is ready for war and capable of totally dominating Europe. “We are not going to fight Europe. I have said this a hundred times”, he said, adding “but if Europe wants to start a war, Russia is ready right now”.
Making the threat implicit, Putin is reported to have added that a Russian attack on Europe would be so enormous and unrestricted there would simply be no one left for Russia to negotiate with. He said: “If Europe suddenly starts a war with us, I think it will end very quickly. This is not Ukraine. With Ukraine, we are acting with surgical precision, carefully. This is not a war in the direct, modern sense of the word”.
Blaming Europe for conflict — despite Russia having invaded Ukraine in 2022 — President Putin said his Western neighbours are “on the side of war” and deliberately trying to derail the peace process by creating proposals that “are not acceptable to Russia.” In all, he said, “Europe is preventing the U.S. from achieving peace in Ukraine”.
Tuesday night’s talks broke after five hours and while they were praised by the Russian side as “useful, constructive, and very informative” but nevertheless were apparently broadly unproductive and failed to deliver a breakthrough. The Kremlin said in comments after the talks that some proposals brought forward were not acceptable to Moscow, and no compromise was found.
The Kremlin said that the remarks President Putin had made before the discussions against Europe were carried into the meeting, with Russian state media recording the President complained of “the destructive actions that we see from the Europeans in the context of the settlement” to the American delegation.
No further meetings were arranged and a high-level contact with President Trump did not emerge. Moscow said the sides had agreed that the next discussions would be by telephone.
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