MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure were “inevitable” as the Kremlin rejected US President Joe Biden’s terms for talks and warned the assault would continue.

After suffering military defeats during what has become the largest armed conflict in Europe since World War II, Russia began targeting Ukrainian energy infrastructure in October, causing sweeping blackouts.

Speaking with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for the first time since mid-September, Putin slammed what he called the West’s “destructive” policies in Ukraine and said Russian strikes were a response to “provocative” attacks from Kyiv.

Moscow “had long refrained from precision missile strikes against certain targets on the territory of Ukraine”, Putin told Scholz, according to a Kremlin readout of the phone talks.

“But now such measures have become a forced and inevitable response to Kyiv’s provocative attacks on Russia’s civilian infrastructure,” the Kremlin said, referring in particular to the October attack on a bridge linking Moscow-annexed Crimea to the Russian mainland.

During the hour-longcall with Putin, Scholz “urged the Russian president to come as quickly as possible to a diplomatic solution including the withdrawal of Russian troops”, according to the German leader’s spokesman Steffen Hebestreit.

Putin urged Berlin to “reconsider its approaches in the context of the Ukrainian events”, the Kremlin said.

He accused the West of carrying out “destructive” policies in Ukraine, stressing that its political and financial aid “leads to the fact that Kyiv completely rejects the idea of any negotiations”.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had ruled out any talks with Russia while Putin is in power shortly after the Kremlin claimed to have annexed several Ukrainian regions.

Offensive ‘continues’

The Kremlin also indicated Moscow was in no mood for talks over Ukraine, after Biden said he would be willing to sit down with Putin if the Russian leader truly wanted to end the fighting.

“What did President Biden say in fact? He said that negotiations are possible only after Putin leaves Ukraine,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, adding Moscow was “certainly” not ready to accept those conditions.

“The special military operation continues,” he added, using the Kremlin term for the assault launched on February 24.

Russia’s strikes have destroyed close to half of the Ukrainian energy system and left millions in the cold and dark at the onset of winter.

Published in Dawn, December 3rd, 2022