Putin Rejects Kyiv Proposal to Halt Long-Range Strikes
In a state television interview, Putin dismisses a mutual halt to long-range strikes and signals Moscow stays focused on capturing all of Donbas.
- In a Russian state television interview, Putin rejected Kyiv's proposal for a mutual halt to long-range strikes.
- He claims the offer came because Ukrainian forces are under pressure along a front stretching 1,250 kilometers.
- Moscow remains focused on fully capturing Donbas and the so-called Novorossiya, meaning four regions.
- US envoys Witkoff and Kushner are expected in Moscow only once Washington is freed from the Iran conflict.
For Belgrade, which has spent years balancing its European path against energy dependence on Moscow, every hint about how the war in Ukraine might end carries a concrete price tag, from the exchange rate of the dinar to the cost of gas before the coming winter. That is why Vladimir Putin’s latest interview for Russian state television, aired late on Sunday, is not a routine propaganda appearance but a signal that, more than four years into the war, the Russian president has no intention of lowering his long-range sword.
In that interview Putin rejected Kyiv’s proposal for a mutual halt to long-range strikes, an arrangement under which both sides would stop hitting targets deep in the opponent’s rear. His reasoning is cold and calculated: the offer, he claims, came because Ukrainian forces are under pressure along a front stretching 1,250 kilometers, while Russian counterstrikes are, in his words, stronger and more destructive. In short, Moscow refuses to surrender an advantage it believes is decisive.
Why does the Kremlin refuse to stop the strikes?
The logic Putin offers is the logic of dominance. In recent months Ukraine has stepped up drone attacks on Russian energy infrastructure, above all on refineries, so a halt to long-range strikes would give Kyiv breathing room. The Kremlin, however, calculates that its own ability to reach deep into enemy territory is greater, and that this is precisely the leverage it cannot give up at the negotiating table. Putin also insisted that such strikes do not change the situation on the front line, downplaying Ukrainian gains and telling his domestic audience that nothing fundamental is shifting.
What makes this appearance significant is that Putin simultaneously claims to be ready for talks, but on terms that would amount to capitulation for Kyiv. He points to the 2022 Istanbul proposals, which Ukraine rejects because they imply surrendering Donbas. Moscow remains focused on the full capture of Donbas and the so-called Novorossiya, covering Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, territories whose loss would be political suicide for Kyiv.
What does this mean for the diplomatic channel?
The US administration is not out of the game, but it appears temporarily occupied on another front. Envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are expected in Moscow only once Washington is freed from the conflict with Iran, which means the pace of negotiations is tied to the White House’s list of priorities rather than to conditions on the Ukrainian front. That sequencing shows how far mediation has become conditioned by a global, rather than a local, calendar.
For the region, the message is clear. As long as the Kremlin believes that time and firepower are working in its favor, there will be no serious ceasefire, and European chancelleries remain in the position of reacting to Russian terms rather than shaping them. Serbia, which builds its foreign policy on the assumption that the war will eventually end in compromise, must also reckon with a scenario in which that compromise stays out of reach for a long time.
Do you think pressure on Russian refineries can force Moscow to sit down under different terms, or is long-range superiority a card the Kremlin will never give up?
