Russia ‘ready’ for war if Europe starts it, Putin says, as US peace talks end without progress
www.theguardian.com
Kremlin aide says Ukraine crisis is no closer to resolution after Witkoff talks, as Russian president accuses European powers of sabotaging peace

Russia and the US did not make progress toward a peace deal for Ukraine during their talks, a senior aide to Vladimir Putin has said, hours after the Russian president issued threats that Russia was ready for war with Europe.

In remarks to Russian media, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said that after a five-hour meeting with Trump envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, the two sides were “neither further nor closer to resolving the crisis in Ukraine. There is a lot of work to be done.”

The downbeat assessment of Tuesday night’s diplomacy follows combative opening statements from Putin as Witkoff and Kushnerarrived for talks at the Kremlin, in which he accused European powers of sabotaging peace in Ukraine and that “European demands” on ending the war were “not acceptable to Russia”.

    • Socialism_Everyday@reddthat.comEnglish
      01·
      5 months ago

      The original headline was doctored to make it seem like Putin was threatening Europe with war, and has been changed since (not reflected in the post title as of this comment). Putin’s actual words are some paragraphs into the article:

      “Russia does not intend to fight Europe, but if Europe starts, we are ready right now.”

    • Pringles@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      01·
      5 months ago

      We are not ready though. Mentally, sure, but in case of an all out war we would still run out of ammo, bombs and manpower in weeks. Only now do we see the first factories and production lines coming online based on the investments of the past years and even then not all the supply lines have been adjusted for it. Europe could probably be ready by the end of 2027 at the earliest, provided it removes its command and control dependency from the US.

      Realistically, Europe won’t be ready until 2030. That’s not to say we wouldn’t be able to get ready sooner, we absolutely would, if we were to switch to a war economy. But nobody wants that, because it ruins your economy and is grossly expensive.

      That doesn’t mean we would get crushed, that wouldn’t be the case, but we would be on the defensive for a while until the gears of war are properly greased.