Afrasianet - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday he expects a team of U.S. negotiators to arrive in Moscow once Washington reaches an agreement with Iran on the war in the Middle East, while acknowledging fuel shortages due to Ukrainian attacks on his country's infrastructure.
In an interview with Russian journalist Pavel Zarubin that was reported by Russian news agencies and also published by Zarubin on Telegram, Putin said: "We expect, after all these events are over and after the end of the active phase on the Iranian track, that we will witness the arrival of representatives of the US administration with whom we have met many times in Moscow."
"We are ready to continue negotiations and discuss all the details," he added.
Putin said Ukraine had proposed a mutual cessation of long-range attacks in a step toward peace, but Moscow saw it as a way to distract from Russia's goal of taking full control of four regions in its military campaign.
Putin said in an interview with a Russian television channel: "It is clear why this proposal is being made, because our counterattacks – which reach deep into Ukrainian territory – are much stronger and have a greater impact, and frankly are more destructive."
He added that Russia does not intend to "save the Kyiv regime", noting that the Ukrainian attacks "aim to distract us and our forces from achieving the main goals, which are the complete liberation of the Donbas and Novorossiya regions", referring to Donbas, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.
The main task now lies in increasing the capabilities of Russian anti-aircraft defenses, and ensuring fuel supplies, especially to Crimea, he said.
Last Friday, local Russian officials declared a regional state of emergency in Moscow's annexed Crimea, with the aim of countering the repercussions of recent Ukrainian strikes .
Russian President Vladimir Putin has stressed that his country does not intend to give Ukraine a chance to stop the advance of Russian forces on the battlefronts, stressing that military operations will continue in parallel with the continuation of political contacts and negotiations on the settlement of the crisis.
Putin said in an interview with Russian television that Moscow had received new proposals from the Ukrainian side and was studying them carefully, but he made it clear that Russia would not allow the creation of negotiating conditions that he described as favorable to Kyiv, stressing that the priority for Moscow remains to achieve its military goals on the ground.
The Russian president accused the Ukrainian authorities of trying to distract Russian forces from their main mission, which is to take full control of the Donbas region, noting that Ukrainian proposals on limiting the scope of military operations, he said, do not include a change in Moscow's goals.
On the ground, Putin spoke about the continued advance of Russian forces in several axes, saying that Russian forces are now about 10.5 kilometers from the city of Sumy, and pointed to progress in the direction of Kupiansk and Robatsovsk, considering that the Ukrainian counterattacks did not succeed in stopping Russian movements.
He added that the tasks of Russian forces in the Sumy and Volchansk axes are to establish a security zone along the border, noting that Moscow believes that the attacks carried out by Ukraine inside Russian territory aim to create a state of instability and force Russia to stop its military advance.
Crimes of the Ukrainian regime
Putin said that the Ukrainian attacks on Russian infrastructure, including civilian facilities, are part of what he described as a media operation as part of the confrontation with Moscow, stressing that the damage to these facilities is being repaired quickly.
The Russian president touched on the situation in the Kursk region, where he said that what he described as the "crimes of the Ukrainian regime" will be the result of Kyiv losing territory that Russia needs to establish a security zone, stressing that Russian counteroperations have become more powerful and inflict significant damage on Ukrainian forces.
On the military side, Putin spoke of the challenges facing the Ukrainian forces, saying that their shortage of personnel has become "catastrophic", while stressing the need to strengthen Russia's air defense system to counter Western weapons reaching Kyiv.
He pointed out that Russia has air defense systems, but the challenge is to quickly increase supplies and production, calling for significantly increasing the production of the required air defense systems, and coordinating the efforts of various institutions to protect infrastructure and population.
Putin stressed that Moscow will continue to develop its defense capabilities, at a time when the military and political confrontation with Kyiv continues, considering that the course of the war is still linked to what is happening on the ground and the balance of power on the ground.
Russian Defense: Our forces have captured 4 new towns in the area of military operations
The Russian Ministry of Defense announces that its forces have taken control of 4 new towns, two in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, and one each in Zaporizhzhia and Sumy oblasts.
The Russian Ministry of Defense announced on Monday that its armed forces had taken control of 4 towns in the special military operations area.
The four towns were distributed as follows: two in the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast and one each in the Zaporizhzhia and Sumy obigods.
From June 15 to 21, Russian forces took control of five towns, all in Donetsk.
On Sunday, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that its armed forces, after intensive operations, took control of the towns of Besantsi of the Dnipropetrovsk region and Novosilovka of the Zaporizhzhia region, in addition to making remarkable progress on all fronts in the area of the special military operation.
In a statement, the ministry revealed that the incursion units of the 36th Separate Automatic Rifle Brigade of the 29th Joint Army of the "East" group of forces had penetrated the Ukrainian defenses and completely took control of the town of Pisantsi.
Russia's special military operation in Ukraine is more than its fourth year, after it was launched in February 2022, amid desperate attempts to reach a diplomatic solution to end the war, but none of them have so far succeeded in making a breakthrough in this regard.
