Putin Claims Battlefield Victory, Refuses Any Peace Talks With Ukrainian "Terrorists"

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that Russia was winning the war in Ukraine and described Kyiv's leadership as "terrorists" with whom Moscow could not negotiate, speaking in his most detailed comments on the conflict in weeks following the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Bishkek. Four and a half years into the war, Russia controls roughly a fifth of Ukrainian territory, and Putin struck a confident, hawkish tone as he detailed developments along the front line, saying Russian advances were accelerating.

Putin said Russian troops had captured 270 square kilometres of Ukraine's Donetsk region in August alone and that two large groups of Ukrainian troops, one numbering between 4,500 and 4,800 soldiers and the other up to 2,000, had been surrounded. Reuters said it could not independently verify these assertions. Russian forces continue to advance towards the strategically significant cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, Putin said, adding that Moscow's military was preparing to launch large-scale strikes against Ukraine's energy infrastructure. He told reporters he had "no doubt the enemy will crumble," though he declined to specify when that might occur, and he dismissed rumours of a new Russian military mobilisation as "utter nonsense."

Putin also acknowledged that Ukrainian attacks inside Russia had caused genuine damage, singling out drones as a particular challenge, and specifically noted that Ukrainian strikes had damaged Russian oil refineries. He said protective measures had since improved, claiming only about 10 percent of affected refineries still required repair, though he did not address the broader fuel shortages that have resulted from the attacks nationally. He also responded sharply to accusations from the German government that Russia was behind an attempted drone incident at Leipzig airport last month, accusing Chancellor Friedrich Merz's government of fabricating evidence to deflect from domestic political troubles and declining approval ratings, without providing evidence for the claim.

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The remarks come against a backdrop of stalled diplomacy: U.S.-mediated peace talks broke off in February after the United States and Israel went to war with Iran, and opinion polls have pointed to growing war fatigue within Russia, with some influential voices warning about the strain the conflict is placing on the country's economy. Despite the combative framing of Ukraine's leadership, Putin said Moscow remained open to "concrete" talks on settling the conflict, provided fresh diplomatic momentum could be generated.

The comments add to a long pattern of similar territorial claims from the Kremlin; Putin made comparable assertions of steady Russian advances at points throughout 2025, when officials said Moscow's forces had captured nearly 5,000 square kilometres of Ukrainian territory over the course of that year. Independent assessments of the front line have often diverged from Kremlin figures, with Ukrainian officials and military observers disputing the scale and pace of Russian gains even as fighting continues across a front line stretching well over a thousand kilometres.

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