According to Russia, it has not set a deadline for ending its war of aggression against Ukraine. When asked by a journalist whether there was an approximate time frame for what Moscow called a “special military operation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov replied on Tuesday, according to the Interfax agency, “No.”
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According to participants at the G7 summit in Bavaria, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi said he hoped the invasion would end this year. He referred to the harshness of winter, which made fighting more difficult.
According to the Interfax agency, Peskov said: “The Ukrainian side can end everything before the end of the day.” For this, the conditions of the Russian side would have to be met. “An order must be issued to the nationalist units and the Ukrainian military to lay down their arms,” said the Kremlin spokesman.
Moscow’s publicly expressed demands at the beginning of the war included recognizing the eastern Ukrainian separatist areas of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states and the annexed Black Sea peninsula of Crimea in 2014 as Russian state territory.
The Ukrainian side rejects this and has already announced that it wants to reconquer all occupied territories.
Russia started the war against the neighboring country at the end of February. According to Peskov, the so-called special military operation is proceeding “according to plan”. International observers, on the other hand, have repeatedly pointed to Russia’s halting advance. (dpa)
