Moscow assured Ukraine that Russian President Vladimir Putin still exists Thursday amid questions from Kyiv.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky openly pondered whether Putin was “still alive” during his remarks at the Davos World Economic Forum Wednesday, alluding to the growing questions about the Russian leader’s health.
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“I don’t quite understand that he is the guy,” Zelensky said at the WEF event. “I don’t quite understand that he is still alive, or that it is him, particularly making decisions, or who is taking decisions there, who is the circle of people making the decisions.”
Since the outbreak of the war in February 2022, there has been speculation that the Russian leader’s health has deteriorated or that he has cancer. In recent weeks, Putin has kept a relatively low profile and, during the initial stages of the war, appeared isolated from some of his confidants. Late last year, Putin opted not to hold his annual press conference.
However, Putin was recently spotted Wednesday in St. Petersburg.
Zelensky fed fodder to the speculation on Putin while opining on when he believed peace negotiations with the Kremlin would commence.
“It is clear that both Russia and Putin are a big problem for Ukraine and for Zelensky. And it is clear that, purely psychologically, Mr. Zelensky would prefer that neither Russia nor Putin exist,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in reply, per Russian state media TASS.
“The sooner the Ukrainian regime realizes that Russia and Putin exist and will exist, that, sooner or later, it will still have to give up everything anti-Russian, the better for a country like Ukraine,” he added.
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During his remarks, Zelensky also recalled prior failed peace attempts with Russia and underscored the Kremlin’s lies to the global community in the run-up to the invasion in which it downplayed its intentions of invading. Zelensky also called on the West to ramp up its arming of Ukraine and detailed his intent of reclaiming Crimea, a region that Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
“Crimea is our land, our territory,” Zelensky contended during the WEF event. “It is our sea and our mountains. Give us your weapons — we will return what is ours.”
