Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, told Kiev on Thursday that it should accept Moscow's terms right away or prepare for the worst. He added menacingly that Russia has only just begun its military action in Ukraine, which has now been ongoing for five months.
Putin said that Western allies were igniting hostilities during a meeting with the heads of the Kremlin-controlled parliament, saying that "the West wants to fight us till the last Ukrainian."
It's a tragedy for the Ukrainian people, he continued, but it appears to be going in that way. In a frightening tone, Putin remarked, "Everybody should know that generally speaking, we haven't even started anything in earnest."
Russia is still willing to have negotiations to put a stop to the fighting, he said, adding that "those who refuse to do so should know that the longer it lasts the more difficult it will be for them to reach a deal with us." "We are hearing that they want to defeat us on the battlefield," Putin further said. "Let them try."
At the beginning of the crisis, the Kremlin insisted that Kiev accept Russian sovereignty over the Crimean Peninsula, which it annexed in 2014, as well as the independence of the rebel territories in eastern Ukraine that it supports. A reference to additional territory gains Ukraine has gained since Russian forces entered the country on February 24 was made in Moscow's statement that it expected Ukraine to submit to the situation there.
Early in the war, the Russian military's attention was diverted from Kyiv and other major towns in northeastern Ukraine to the eastern industrial heartland of Donbas, where Moscow-backed rebels have been engaged in combat with Ukrainian forces since 2014.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says, 'won't relent'
In the meantime, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, told CNN that his nation will not relinquish any of its territories to Russia in order to put an end to the conflict. In a special interview, Zelenskyy declared, "This is our territory."
After years of animosity culminated in a full-scale invasion as a result of Ukraine's tight ties to the US-dominated military alliance, NATO, Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 in what it describes as "a special military operation."
