![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/P01-260511-320.jpg\")
<\/p>\nRussian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday said the war in Ukraine was winding down, slamming Western support for Kyiv, as the first day of a US-brokered ceasefire was marked by mutual accusations of violations. <\/p>\n
Putin spoke after telling soldiers at the scaled-down parade in Moscow that they were fighting an \u201caggressive force\u201d in Ukraine, backed by all of NATO and describing his war goals as \u201cjust.\u201d <\/p>\n
The Russian leader has made the memory of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War II a central narrative of his 25-year rule and repeatedly invoked it to justify his Ukraine offensive. Russian authorities typically mark the Victory Day parade with pomp and grandeur, but a spate of Ukrainian long-range attacks over the past few weeks prompted the Kremlin to ramp up security measures and downsize this year\u2019s celebrations. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Photo: AP<\/p>\n
When asked after the parade whether the Western military aid to Ukraine had gone too far, Putin said: \u201cThey started ratcheting up the confrontation with Russia, which continues to this day.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cI think it [the conflict] is heading to an end, but it\u2019s still a serious matter,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey spent months waiting for Russia to suffer a crushing defeat, for its statehood to collapse. It didn\u2019t work out,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then, they got stuck in that groove and now they can\u2019t get out of it,\u201d he said, referring to the Western countries. <\/p>\n
Putin added that he was ready to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a third country only once all conditions for a potential peace agreement were settled. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis should be the final point, not the negotiations themselves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday said the war in Ukraine was winding down, slamming Western support for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":950757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[2000,299,17260,657,17259],"class_list":{"0":"post-950756","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-the-taipei-times","11":"tag-ukraine","12":"tag-17259"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116551161634452740","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950756","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=950756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/950757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=950756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=950756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=950756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}