President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good evening. Happy holiday once again, happy
Victory Day.
Question: Let me start with today and the way
you view it, if I may. Today is a great and momentous day. Earlier, US President
Donald Trump came up with an initiative to declare a three-day ceasefire. You
supported it, so did Zelensky. However, on the eve of May 9, there were still a number of grave and provocative statements coming from Kiev.
How would you assess today and the way events unfolded? Even the military parade was held in a somewhat reduced
format due to security concerns. Could you share your overall assessment of the day? Were there any provocations?
Vladimir Putin: As for provocations, as you can see, I am here, and so far, the Defence
Ministry has not reported anything of that nature to me, so I cannot comment on it.
Regarding the parade. You know that
this year – which is not an anniversary year but nevertheless it is Victory Day – we decided that the celebrations would go ahead in any case but without a display of military hardware, and not for security concerns but primarily
because the Armed Forces should focus on the decisive defeat of the enemy
within the framework of the special military operation.
As for the provocative statements,
all of those decisions had been made much earlier than all those provocative
statements were issued, as you said.
As for the statements, we have
responded to them, as you know. The Defence Ministry issued a certain initial
statement – it is well known – that in case an attempt were made to disrupt our
celebration events, we will respond with massive missile strikes on Kiev. Was
there anything unclear about it? This is what was intended to be a response.
We did not
limit ourselves to it. It was followed by a Foreign Ministry’s note, which is an official document, not just a declaration. But we did not stop there. We
started working with our major partners and friends, primarily with our friends
from the People’s Republic of China, India and some other nations, including with
the US administration. What did this work involve? We simply presented our
friends, colleagues, and partners with a picture of what the situation could
develop into. We have no desire to worsen or damage relations with anyone. Such
a situation could arise given that all the command and decision-making centres
in Kiev are located in close proximity to the diplomatic missions of a number
of countries – several dozen, in fact. That is precisely the issue. When we
began this dialogue with the US administration, we drew their attention to this
matter, outlined the potential consequences, and asked them to do everything
necessary to ensure the security of their country’s diplomatic mission.
As a result of all these discussions,
US President Donald Trump proposed an additional two-day ceasefire and a prisoner exchange during that period.
We immediately agreed to this
proposal, particularly because, in my view, it was fully justified, motivated
by respect for our shared victory over Nazism, and clearly humanitarian in nature.
By the way, a few days earlier, on May 5, we had also submitted a proposal for a prisoner exchange to the Ukrainian side and provided a list of 500 Ukrainian servicemen held in Russia.
The initial response was that they needed to review the proposal more carefully – perhaps not all 500, but maybe 200 – and after that they effectively
disappeared from contact and later stated directly that they were not prepared
for such an exchange. They did not want it.
Therefore, when the proposal from US
President Donald Trump was put forward, we, of course, immediately supported
it. We hope that, in this case, the Ukrainian side will ultimately respond
positively to the proposal of the US President. Unfortunately, so far, we have
not received any response.
To be continued.