{"id":664979,"date":"2025-12-31T15:57:18","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T15:57:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/664979\/"},"modified":"2025-12-31T15:57:18","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T15:57:18","slug":"putin-dons-heavy-make-up-as-he-vows-victory-over-ukraine-in-new-year-message","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/664979\/","title":{"rendered":"Putin dons heavy make-up as he vows victory over Ukraine in New Year message"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vladimir Putin<\/a>\u00a0donned heavy make-up as he vowed victory in the war with Ukraine in his New Year message.<\/p>\n

As 2026 arrived in the extreme east of Russia<\/a>, his message was angled to his troops – as he defied efforts to find peace with Kyiv<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The warmonger leader said: ‘I congratulate all our soldiers and commanders on the upcoming New Year!<\/p>\n

‘We believe in you and our victory.’<\/p>\n

He was speaking less than two weeks before his war in Ukraine will have lasted longer than the 1,418 days Josef Stalin led the Soviet Union in the Second World War<\/a> in Europe between 1941-45.<\/p>\n

Putin\u2019s bloody conflict which has seen more than one million dead and maimed will have lasted longer by January 12, 2026.<\/p>\n

The following month on February 22, the debilitating war will reach four years.<\/p>\n

The Russian ruler appears to be determined to go on fighting and scuttle peace moves from Donald Trump<\/a> while pretending to engage with them.<\/p>\n

\"Vladimir <\/p>\n

Vladimir Putindonned heavy make-up as he vowed victory in the war with Ukraine in his New Year message<\/p>\n

Russian fighters ‘have taken on the responsibility of fighting for your homeland, for truth and justice’, he said in a patriotic-charged message.<\/p>\n

‘At this moment, as the New Year approaches, we all feel the passage of time.<\/p>\n

‘The future lies ahead of us, and what it will be like depends largely on us.’<\/p>\n

He vowed ‘to support our heroes, the participants in the special military operation, with words and deeds’.<\/p>\n

The message was filmed at the Kremlin with Putin, 73, wearing heavy make-up.<\/p>\n

He told Russians: ‘The future lies ahead of us, and what it will be like depends largely on us.<\/p>\n

‘We rely on our own strength and on those who are close to us, who are dear to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a separate message, ex-president Dmitry Medvedev – Putin\u2019s security council deputy – said of victory in Ukraine: ‘I sincerely believe that it is near.’<\/p>\n

\"Russian <\/p>\n

Russian fighters ‘have taken on the responsibility of fighting for your homeland, for truth and justice’, Putin said in a patriotic-charged message<\/p>\n

\"US <\/p>\n

US President Donald Trump and Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky at a press conference following talks at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida, on December 28, 2025<\/p>\n

Echoing Putin he spoke of ‘our great and invincible Russia’.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Russian President’s New Year’s message comes after one of his allies\u00a0threatened to kill Volodymyr Zelensky and put his body on public display in St Petersburg over an alleged bid by Kyiv to ‘assassinate’ Putin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Moscow has claimed that Ukraine launched 91 long-range drones at Putin’s state residence on the shores of Lake Valdai, an allegation which has been hotly denied by Kyiv<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Putin’s security council deputy Dmitry Medvedev issued a direct Kremlin threat to Zelensky’s life, writing on X: ‘The stinking Kiev b*****d is trying to derail the settlement of the conflict<\/a>.’<\/p>\n

‘He wants war. Well, now at least he’ll have to stay in hiding for the rest of his worthless life,’ Medvedev wrote.<\/p>\n

He later took to Telegram to say: ‘I will not write here about his violent death, although right now the Grim Reaper is breathing down the b*****d’s neck.<\/p>\n

‘It is very important that in the future, after his imminent demise, the green homunculus’s body, preserved in alcohol, be displayed in the Kunstkamera [science museum] in St. Petersburg, where Russian tsars collected freaks for the amusement of their descendants.’<\/p>\n

Ukraine claims the drone threat to the Valdai palace was a hoax to enable Russia to carry on Putin’s war rather than engage with Donald Trump’s peace initiative<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

A room of a damaged residential building following an attack, in Odesa, on December 31, 2025, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine<\/p>\n

\"Russian <\/p>\n

Russian strikes wounded six people in Odesa including three children, the Ukrainian city’s military administration said on December 31, 2025<\/p>\n

‘I learned about it from President Putin today. I was very angry about it,’ said Trump on the alleged residence attack.<\/p>\n

Moscow’s defence ministry released video footage on Wednesday of what it said was a downed drone at a briefing intended to challenge Kyiv’s denials that such an attack took place<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The clip, shot during the night, showed a damaged drone lying in the snow in a forested area in north-west Russia this week.<\/p>\n

Russia’s defence ministry said the alleged attack was ‘targeted, carefully planned, and carried out in stages’ –\u00a0 a claim Kyiv<\/a> has denied as a ‘lie’.\u00a0<\/p>\n

US ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker cast doubt on Tuesday on Russia\u2019s accusation, saying he wants to see US intelligence on the incident.<\/p>\n

‘It is unclear whether it actually happened,’ Whitaker told Fox Business ‘Varney & Co.’ in an interview about an alleged incident.<\/p>\n

‘It seems to me a little indelicate to be this close at a peace deal, Ukraine really wanting to get a peace deal done, and then to do something that would be viewed as reckless or not helpful,’ he said.<\/p>\n

Ukrainian foreign minister Andrei Sybiha said the Kremlin’s ‘fabricated’ account was to ‘create a pretext and false justification for Russia’s further attacks against Ukraine, as well as to undermine and impede the peace process’.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Posting on X, Zelensky wrote: ‘This alleged “residence strike” story is a complete fabrication intended to justify additional attacks against Ukraine, including Kyiv, as well as Russia\u2019s own refusal to take necessary steps to end the war.<\/p>\n

‘Typical Russian lies. Furthermore, the Russians have already targeted Kyiv in the past, including the Cabinet of Ministers building.<\/p>\n

‘Ukraine does not take steps that can undermine diplomacy. To the contrary, Russia always takes such steps. This is one of many differences between us.’<\/p>\n

Ukraine’s \u200benergy ministry \u2060said that a Russian overnight \u200bair \u200dattack on the \u200bsouthern Odesa region had left \u200bmore than 170,000 residents without power.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Six people were wounded, including three children – two\u00a0aged between eight and 14, as well as a seven-month-old baby.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vladimir Putin\u00a0donned heavy make-up as he vowed victory in the war with Ukraine in his New Year message.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":664980,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[118646,92,2000,299,12,332,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-664979","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-chinese-new-year","9":"tag-dailymail","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-russia","14":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115815006074007758","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=664979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/664980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}