President Putin is nearing the end of his life and the invasion of Ukraine will come to an end upon his demise, President Zelensky has said, warning that Moscow is readying its forces for an imminent offensive.
“He will die soon — that’s a fact — and it will all be over,” the Ukrainian leader, 47, told Eurovision News. “I’m younger than Putin, so put your bets on me. My prospects are better.”
Zelensky did not say why he believed that Putin, 72, was approaching death. There have been rumours for years that Putin is suffering from Parkinson’s disease or cancer. None has been confirmed, however.
The average life expectancy for a Russian man is only 67 years. However, Putin has access to top-quality healthcare beyond the means of most of his citizens. He is also believed to be nearly teetotal.
Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukrainian military intelligence, said more than two years ago that Putin was terminally ill with cancer and that he would die in the near future. He did not provide evidence for the claim.
Zelensky also said that Putin, who has been in power for 25 years, was afraid of losing control over his people and that Ukraine’s western allies could help to destabilise Russia by keeping up sanctions and other measures to weaken its war machine. “If they push Putin, he will face destabilisation in his society and he will fear it,” he said.
It is not clear whether Putin’s eventual death will cause profound changes within Russia, or whether his allies will simply continue on his path. “After Putin, there will be Putin,” Vyacheslav Volodin, chairman of the Russian parliament, said in 2020. “Everything that happens after President Putin will happen according to the patterns he laid down.”
Overnight on Wednesday a Russian drone attack injured at least 21 people in the Kharkiv region
GEORGE IVANCHENKO/ANADOLU/GETTY IMAGES
Russian scientists were reported to have been ordered last year to come up with anti-ageing remedies by an official working for Putin, who is said to be obsessed with the idea of eternal life. Putin is also reported by local media to take regular baths in an extract of blood from the severed antlers of Siberian red deer, believed to have powerful rejuvenating powers.
Zelensky also warned that Russia was preparing to launch a new military offensive focused on the Sumy and Kharkiv regions of northeast Ukraine. Moscow is restocking its arsenals, including with Zircon hypersonic missiles and Kalibr cruise missiles, a spokesman for Ukrainian military intelligence said.
Zelensky told Le Figaro, the French newspaper: “Putin is trying to buy time and is preparing for a spring offensive. We see preparations for this upcoming operation. We have shared intelligence with our allies. We must look at the situation with wide open eyes.”
The Ukrainian leader also announced this month that Russia was gathering troops close to Ukraine’s northern border.
Russian troops were forced to retreat from the Kharkiv region in the autumn of 2022 in one of the most humiliating setbacks for Putin since the start of the war. Despite the setback, Russia has continued to target the region with drones and missile attacks.
Moscow claimed this month that it had captured territory in the Sumy region for the first time since the early months of its invasion. Kyiv denied this at the time but General Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Ukraine’s armed forces, said on Thursday that Russia was “intensifying” its actions in the area and trying to advance deeper into Ukraine.
Zelensky said that Putin had been planning to launch his new offensive last year, but was prevented from doing so by Ukraine’s surprise incursion into western Russia’s Kursk region in August. Ukrainian troops have now been forced into an almost complete withdrawal from Russia, although there is no evidence to support Putin and President Trump’s claims that they had been encircled.
Putin meeting members of Movement of the First, his youth group initiative, in Moscow on Wednesday
VYACHESLAV PROKOFYEV/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Putin said last week that Russia should establish a “buffer zone” in the Sumy region to safeguard Kursk from future attacks. Oleksiy Hetman, a Ukrainian analyst, said that Russia had deployed additional units, including mechanised brigades and artillery batteries, along the border. Other analysts said, however, that there was no indication that Moscow had so far amassed a force that was large enough to break through Ukrainian lines in Sumy.
Ruslan Mykula, a co-founder of Ukraine’s Deep State analytical website, said on Tuesday that Russian troops were trying to create a land corridor along the Oskil river in the Kharkiv region as they try to gain ground around Kupiansk, a key town.
Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, has said the US is studying Russia’s demands for a Black Sea ceasefire. The White House made no mention of any conditions when it announced the truce after long talks between the US and Russia in Saudi Arabia. However, the Kremlin said shortly later that it would agree to the deal only if sanctions were lifted against its agricultural companies and one of its top banks.
Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, said the White House was working to “more fully understand what the Russian position is”
LEAH MILLIS/REUTERS
Rubio said that American officials were working to “more fully understand what the Russian position is, or what they’re asking in exchange, and then we’ll present that to the president and make a decision about the next step”.
The deal was more beneficial to Russia because Ukraine had already managed to carve out a Black Sea shipping route, in spite of Moscow’s withdrawal from an agreement on security for grain exports in 2023, Zelensky said on Thursday. “[The Russians] were the ones losing [vessels] there,” he said.
The European Union has said that most of the sanctions and restrictions that Russia wants lifted in exchange for the Black Sea deal were imposed by Brussels and that they will stay in place until Putin ends the war.
Trump admitted on Tuesday that Putin may be trying to spin out the talks on Ukraine, but said he still believed that Moscow wanted to bring the war to a close. “I think that Russia wants to see an end, but it could be they’re dragging their feet,” he told Newsmax.
Russia’s actions and rhetoric appear to indicate, however, that Putin wants to achieve far more of his goals in Ukraine before he is willing to even consider a full ceasefire or a lasting peace.
John Lough, an expert on Russia, wrote in an article published by the British think tank Chatham House: “[Putin] is ready to dance a long, slow tango with Trump while the Russian army continues its battlefield advances.”
Overnight on Wednesday, a Russian drone attack injured at least 21 people in the Kharkiv region and explosions were also reported in the southern Kherson region. The Kremlin has also indicated that there can be no end to the war while there is a pro-western government in Kyiv.
Speaking in Paris on Thursday, Zelensky accused Russia of continuing to hit Ukrainian energy facilities in contravention of a deal banning both sides from such attacks.
“Two days ago there was a night when there were no strikes on the energy sector. Today, the energy sector in Kherson was damaged by Russian artillery. I think there should be a reaction from America,” he said.
At least two people were killed and tens of thousands lost power as a result of the attack, Ukrainian officials said. Moscow has also accused Kyiv of targeting its energy infrastructure in recent days.
Tatiana Stanovaya, a Russian political analyst who has been designated a “foreign agent” by the Kremlin, has said that Putin realises his forces are not strong enough to mount a new full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Instead, she wrote, he was hoping that Kyiv would eventually surrender when it realised that long-term resistance is futile.
Stanovaya also predicted that Russia would be able to maintain its level of military operations for years to come, even without big territorial gains. She wrote on Telegram: “Russia is confident that the West has neither the will nor the ability to disrupt this plan.”