No need for massive new strikes on Ukraine: Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin said yesterday that there is no need for massive new strikes on Ukraine and that Russia is not looking to destroy the country.He told a news conference at the end of a summit in Kazakhstan that his call-up of Russian reservists would be over within two weeks and there are no plans for a further mobilisation.Putin also repeated the Kremlin position that Russia is willing to hold talks, although he said they would require international mediation if Ukraine is prepared to take part.Taken together, his comments appeared to suggest a slight softening of his tone as the war nears the end of its eighth month, after weeks of Ukrainian advances and significant Russian defeats.Wall Street shares opened higher as traders interpreted them as easing geopolitical tensions.However, Putin – who has said that he would be ready to use nuclear weapons to defend Russia’s “territorial integrity” – also warned of a “global catastrophe” in the event of a direct clash of Nato troops with Russia.He was speaking after a week when Russia has staged its heaviest missile attacks on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities since the start of its invasion of February 24 – an action that Putin has said was retaliation for an attack that damaged a Russian bridge to unilaterally annexed Crimea.“We do not set ourselves the task of destroying Ukraine. No, of course not,” the president said.He said that there is “no need for massive strikes” now because most designated targets had been hit.Russia’s faltering invasion has confronted Putin with the deepest crisis of his 22 years as Russia’s paramount leader, as even loyal Kremlin allies have attacked his generals’ failings and the chaotic nature of the mobilisation.However, he answered “No” when asked if he had any regrets, saying that failure to act in Ukraine would have been even worse.“I want it to be clear: what is happening today is unpleasant, to put it mildly, but we would have got the same thing a little later, only in worse conditions for us, that’s all. So we are acting correctly and in a timely manner.”Meanwhile a United Nations envoy alleged that Russian forces are using rape as a weapon.UN envoy Pramila Patten told AFP in an interview that rapes and sexual assaults attributed to Moscow’s forces in Ukraine were part of a Russian “military strategy” and a “deliberate tactic to dehumanise the victims”.“When you hear women testify about Russian soldiers equipped with Viagra, it’s clearly a military strategy,” the UN special representative on sexual violence said on Thursday. “It is clearly a deliberate tactic to dehumanise the victims.”In Kyiv yesterday, President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed, during events marking the country’s first Defender’s Day celebrations, that Ukrainian troops would be victorious over Russian forces.He also laid a wreath at a memorial for soldiers killed since 2014, when Kremlin-backed separatists wrested control of parts of two eastern regions.In February this year, the separatists appealed for Russia to intervene.“The world is with us, more than ever. This makes us stronger than ever in history,” Zelensky added in reference to unprecedented Western aid.