Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday that the Russian invasion of Ukraine could «end tomorrow» if there were a «political will» on the part of Kiev and ruled out talks on further annexations of territories for the time being.
Peskov pointed out that if the Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelenski, «had that desire», there could be talk of an end to the war, according to information gathered by the Interfax news agency.
«Zelensky knows when all this can end: it can end tomorrow if that’s what he wants,» he pointed out.
He also ruled out the annexation of new territories in the area affected by the Russian «military operation», as Moscow refers to the invasion, and indicated that «there are no doubts about it». «At least there are no communiqués on this issue. However, there is still a lot of work to be done to liberate these territories,» he has maintained.
«We know that in a large number of new regions of Russia there are occupied territories that have to be liberated,» he asserted before insisting that one of the objectives of the Russian military intervention is «to protect the population living in the southeast of Ukraine, in the Donbas.»
Therefore, he stressed that «to protect these people, the territories have to be formed, so they had to be annexed with a referendum». «This is what the president (Vladimir Putin) has been talking about,» he said.
