Sept 18 (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Ukraine was deliberately hindering talks aimed at ending the 4 1/2-year-old war and accused Kyiv of interfering in Russia’s parliamentary election.
Putin, in comments to Russia’s Military-Industrial commission, also reasserted Moscow’s main defence aim of relying on its “nuclear triad” of weapons and said Moscow also had to move towards improving its anti-missile defences.
In comments reported by Russian news agencies, Putin said Ukraine had “long degenerated into a dictatorship,” referring to the country not holding a new presidential election despite the expiry of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s mandate.
“The Ukrainian leadership is in no hurry to hold elections, as you know, but they are also trying to interfere with us,” Putin was quoted as saying, without providing evidence.
Zelenskiy and other Ukrainian officials say no election can be held in their country while a state of emergency, in place since Russia’s February 2022 invasion, remains in effect.
Kyiv derides the Russian vote as a “pseudo election” with the result never in doubt.
ELECTION ONGOING
Russians began voting on Friday in a three-day parliamentary election that Putin has said will show that millions of people back his army fighting in Ukraine, even though most anti-war candidates were not allowed to run.
The result is likely to be held up by the Kremlin as evidence of widespread public support for Putin’s policies and, in particular, for his prosecution of Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War Two, now in its fifth year.
Putin said Ukrainian strikes on Russian targets meant Kyiv’s offers to hold negotiations to end the war were disingenuous.
He said one recent Ukrainian strike had hit a home in a village in a Russian-occupied part of Zaporizhzhia, killing the head of a local election commission, who had been presented posthumously with a Russian state honour.
“By committing crimes of this kind, they are doing everything to ensure that there is no peace and no negotiations,” Putin was quoted as telling the commission.
In other comments to the commission, Putin said Russia was continuing to rely on the nuclear triad of land-based, sea-based and aircraft-launched weapons, but that it also needed to improve air defence systems.
Ukraine has rapidly developed its drone capabilities and has launched strikes against Russian industrial targets up to 3,000 km (1,800 miles) from its border, disrupting fuel supplies and other aspect of Russian daily life.
(Reporting by Reuters, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
