President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia had been obliged to launch strikes that have inflicted heavy damage on Ukrainian energy sites in response to Kyiv’s attacks on Russian targets.
The Kremlin leader, quoted by Russian news agencies, was speaking to his ally, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, after overnight attacks destroyed a large electricity plant near Kyiv and hit power facilities in several regions of Ukraine.
The president said the strikes were part of the process of “demilitarization” of Ukraine — one of the objectives he cited when he sent Russian troops into Ukraine in February 2022.
“Unfortunately, we observed a series of strikes on our energy sites recently and were obliged to respond,” Putin was quoted as saying.
“The strikes on energy are linked in part with solving one of the tasks we set for ourselves, and that is demilitarization. We believe above all that in this way we will affect Ukraine’s military industrial complex and in a very direct way.”
Russia, he said, had refrained from carrying out such attacks in winter “out of humanitarian considerations.”
“What I mean is that we didn’t want to leave social institutions without power, hospitals and the like,” he said. But he said the Ukrainian strikes — mainly on oil refineries in many different Russian regions in recent weeks — prompted Moscow to respond.
In his comments to Lukashenko, Putin again dismissed any suggestion by Ukraine’s Western allies that Russia had plans to attack any European countries beyond Ukraine.
“That is nonsense. It is necessary for the ruling circles, as we used to say, to explain and justify their expenditure on the war in Ukraine,” he said.
Putin again rejected any notion of holding peace talks without Russia’s participation — Switzerland has said it will host a “world summit” on Ukraine in June but Russia said it would not take part.
Both Putin and Lukashenko agreed that the best starting point for any settlement in Ukraine was the series of talks held in Turkiye in 2022 in the early weeks of the war, which broke up with no agreement.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says talks on peace must be based on his plan which calls for withdrawal of Russian troops, restoration of Ukraine’s 1991 post-Soviet borders and a mechanism to bring Russian to account for its actions.
Putin: Russia had to attack Ukraine energy sites in response to Kyiv’s strikes
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Putin: Russia had to attack Ukraine energy sites in response to Kyiv’s strikes
- Putin again rejected any notion of holding peace talks without Russia’s participation
Cambodia shuts Thailand border crossings over deadly fighting
- Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said Trump “didn’t mention whether we should make a ceasefire” during their Friday phone call
- Across the border, a Cambodian evacuee said she was “sad” the fighting hadn’t stopped despite Trump’s intervention
BANGKOK: Cambodia shut its border crossings with Thailand on Saturday, after Bangkok denied US President Donald Trump’s claim that a truce had been agreed to end days of deadly fighting.
Violence between the Southeast Asian neighbors, which stems from a long-running dispute over the colonial-era demarcation of their 800-kilometer (500-mile) border, has displaced around half a million people on both sides.
At least 25 people have died this week, including four Thai soldiers the defense ministry said were killed in the border area on Saturday.
The latest fatalities were followed by Phnom Penh announcing it would immediately “suspend all entry and exit movements at all Cambodia-Thailand border crossings,” the interior ministry said.
Each side blamed the other for reigniting the conflict, before Trump said a truce had been agreed.
Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said Trump “didn’t mention whether we should make a ceasefire” during their Friday phone call.
The two leaders “didn’t discuss” the issue, Anutin told journalists on Saturday.
Trump had hailed his “very good conversation” with Anutin and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet on Friday.
“They have agreed to CEASE all shooting effective this evening, and go back to the original Peace Accord” agreed in July, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
The United States, China and Malaysia, as chair of the regional bloc ASEAN, brokered a ceasefire in July after an initial five-day spate of violence.
In October, Trump backed a follow-on joint declaration between Thailand and Cambodia, touting new trade deals after they agreed to prolong their truce.
But Thailand suspended the agreement the following month after Thai soldiers were wounded by land mines at the border.
In Thailand, evacuee Kanyapat Saopria said she doesn’t “trust Cambodia anymore.”
“The last round of peace efforts didn’t work out... I don’t know if this one will either,” the 39-year-old told AFP.
Across the border, a Cambodian evacuee said she was “sad” the fighting hadn’t stopped despite Trump’s intervention.
“I am not happy with brutal acts,” said Vy Rina, 43.
- Trading blame over civilians -
Bangkok and Phnom Penh have traded accusations of attacks against civilians, with the Thai army reporting six wounded on Saturday by Cambodian rockets.
Cambodia’s information minister, Neth Pheaktra, meanwhile said Thai forces had “expanded their attacks to include civilian infrastructure and Cambodian civilians.”
A Thai navy spokesman said the air force “successfully destroyed” two Cambodian bridges used to transport weapons to the conflict zone.
Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim on Saturday urged both sides to “cease all forms of hostilities and refrain from any further military actions.”
Thailand has reported 14 soldiers killed and seven civilian deaths, while Cambodia said four civilians were killed earlier this week.
At a camp in Thailand’s Buriram, AFP journalists saw displaced residents calling relatives near the border who reported that fighting was ongoing.
Thailand’s prime minister has vowed to “continue to perform military actions until we feel no more harm and threats to our land and people.”
After the call with Trump, Anutin said “the one who violated the agreement needs to fix (the situation).”
Cambodia’s Hun Manet, meanwhile, said his country “has always been adhering to peaceful means for dispute resolutions.”
