ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, June 4 (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke on Thursday about the Ukraine war, compromises on peace agreed with U.S. President Donald Trump and whether or not he would stay in power until 2036.
Putin spoke to senior editors of news agencies including Reuters at a meeting in the Russian city of St Petersburg.
Following are his quotes as translated by Reuters.
WHEN ASKED ABOUT UKRAINE, CONTROL OF DONBAS AND PEACE:
“One does not exclude the other. Controlling the entire Donbas region and making a deal do not contradict each other. Why do you assume that this is in contradiction?”
“Russian troops are advancing along the entire front.” He said Russia had taken control of more than 85% of the Donetsk region and had control of 80% of the Zaporizhzhia region.
“We are certainly ready and willing to reach an agreement with Ukraine by peaceful means. And specifically on the basis that we discussed at the meeting with President Trump in Anchorage. At that time questions were put before Russia so that we could make certain compromises. And Russia agrees to the compromises that we discussed in Anchorage. The Ukrainian side must also agree to these compromises. And the conflict will quickly come to its natural conclusion.”
ON TRUMP’S EFFORTS FOR PEACE:
“The proposals that were made by President Trump, as I have already said, may well be the basis for peace agreements. Therefore, answering your question, whether the administration acted in the right direction or not, yes, this is a proposal that requires compromise, and compromise for both sides. For Russia, too. And we generally agreed with these compromises. We need to convince the Ukrainian side of this and that’s it. In general, I believe that they can well form the basis of an agreement between Russia and Ukraine and can put an end to this conflict.”
ON STAYING IN POWER TO 2036:
Asked by Reuters whether he felt he had the stamina and health to serve that long, Putin said: “Only God knows if we have enough health – for me, for you, and for everyone gathered here, in order to live until tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, and even more so to solve some of the tasks we face, to achieve the goals that we set for ourselves.”
Putin, in power as either president or prime minister since 1999, said the Constitution allowed him to run again in 2030 and serve another term until 2036 if he won.
“Indeed, the Constitution allows me to run in 2030, but I think it’s too early to talk about it. To be honest, it’s very early. I’m not even thinking about it right now. I’m being completely honest. I don’t even think about it,” Putin said.
“The country faces a lot of large-scale and pressing issues. They need to be solved without thinking about it, but thinking about the future of Russia.”
ON THE SLOWING RUSSIAN ECONOMY:
“As Mark Twain said, rumours of my death are greatly exaggerated. He made a joke once. And so it is now. They predicted defeat on the battlefield, then they said, I remember the former president of the United States saying that the Russian economy was in tatters. But don’t do wishful thinking.”
“How much has the EU economy grown over the past three years? Don’t worry about it. Somewhere around 3%. How much has the Russian economy grown? By 10%. More than three times the EU economy.”
“Yes, we have questions related to the macroeconomic state of the economy as a whole. This is primarily an increase in inflation. That is why the central bank and the financial authorities in general have made a number of tough decisions to suppress the growth of inflation and improve macroeconomic indicators. And these are tough decisions. Raising the key rate. But these measures are yielding results … The measures carried out by our economic and financial authorities are yielding results, although we deliberately went to the point, of course, that the central bank raised the key rate in a serious way, and now it has already been reduced several times, to 14.5% now. Many people believe that this is too little, and that we still need to reduce it further. But I’m not going to comment on this right now.”
“We deliberately went to cool down the economy. We can say that we are over-cooled, we can say that not everything has been done in this direction yet. But these are conscious steps … We are fighting for the health of the Russian economy as a whole.”
(Reporting by Darya Korsunskaya, Dmitry Antonov, Gleb Stolyarov, Anastasia Lyrchikova, Alessandra Prentice and Mark Bendeich; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Daniel Wallis)
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