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President Vladimir Putin he boasted that his military operation in Ukraine has strengthened Russia and denied that the ouster of key ally Bashar Assad in Syria had damaged Moscow’s prestige as he held his annual news conference and call-in show on Thursday.
He used the tightly choreographed event, which lasted more than four hours, to reinforce his authority and demonstrate comprehensive control over everything from consumer prices to military equipment.
He claimed that sending troops to Ukraine in 2022 strengthened Russia’s military and economic power.
“Russia has become much stronger in the last two or three years because it has become a truly sovereign country,” he said. “We are standing strong in terms of the economy, we are strengthening our defense potential and our military capability is now the strongest in the world.”
Putin, who has been in power for nearly a quarter of a century and was re-elected for another six-year term in February, said the military was “making progress towards achieving our goals” in what he called a special military operation in Ukraine.
Asked about the new hypersonic ballistic missile that Russia used for the first time last month to strike Ukraine, Putin scoffed at claims by some Western experts that it could be intercepted by NATO air defenses.
He mockingly challenged Ukraine’s allies to a “high-tech duel,” suggesting Moscow could give advance notice of an Oreshnik missile attack on Kiev and see if the West could protect the city.
“Let them choose a target, maybe in Kiev, place anti-aircraft defenses there, and we will hit it with Orešnik,” he said with a dry smile. “Let’s see what happens.”
Russia is making steady, if slow, progress in Ukraine, but it has also suffered embarrassing setbacks. Lieutenant General Igor Kirilov was on Tuesday killed by a bomb planted outside his apartment building in Moscow — a brazen assassination claimed by Ukraine that brought the conflict back to the streets of the Russian capital.
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Putin described Kirilov’s killing as a “big mistake” by Russian security agencies, stressing that they should learn from it and improve their effectiveness.
Moscow troops are also fighting Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk region, where they have launched an incursion. Asked when he would expel the Ukrainians, Putin said “we will certainly expel them,” but did not say how long it would take.
The show, broadcast live by state television in Russia’s 11 time zones, is usually dominated by domestic issues, with journalists and ordinary people calling in to ask about soaring consumer prices and mortgages, low pensions and a shortage of doctors. But the Russian leader is being watched especially for his answers on foreign affairs.
In typical marathon press conference style, he asked the crowd to unfurl a banner presented to him by Marines fighting in Kursk as he spoke about Ukraine.
Putin said he was open to possible talks with US President-elect Donald Trump, who has promised to negotiate an agreement to end the conflict in Ukraine.
“If we meet with Mr. Trump, we will have something to talk about,” he said, without elaborating.
Putin said Russia is open to compromise in potential peace talks on Ukraine.
“Politics is the art of compromise,” he said. We have always said that we are ready for both talks and compromises. At the same time, Putin added that the talks should be based on the “situation on the ground,” referring to some of the conditions he previously outlined.
Putin has previously demanded that Ukraine drop its bid to join NATO and recognize Russia’s gains. Kyiv and the West rejected these demands.
In the first comments of Assad’s fall, Putin said that he had not yet met with the former Syrian ruler to whom he had given refuge in Moscow, but he was planning to do so. He said he would be asked about Austin Tice, the American journalist who disappeared in Syria 12 years ago.
“We can also ask the people who are controlling the situation on the ground in Syria,” Putin said, responding to a question from NBC’s Keir Simmons, who cited a letter he said Tice’s mother wrote to the Russian leader asking for help.
Moscow has sought to establish contacts with the rebels who ousted Assad to secure its diplomatic and military personnel in the country and to try to extend the lease agreement for its air and naval bases in the country.
But it is not clear how much influence Russia will have in Syria. Assad’s fall has dealt him a painful blow as Russia has struggled for nine years to support him in the country’s civil war.
However, Putin denied that the events had weakened Moscow, arguing that it had achieved the goal of destroying “terrorist” groups in Syria through an air campaign launched in support of Assad in 2015. He argued that the rebel groups fighting Assad had changed and the West now ready to make connections with them.
“This means that our goals have been achieved,” Putin said.
He described Israel as the “main beneficiary” of Assad’s fall, pointing to the deployment of Israeli troops in southern Syria. He expressed hope that Israel would eventually withdraw these forces, but noted that it was still building them up.
He said that Moscow would talk to the new authorities in Syria about the possible extension of the presence of Russian bases in the country.
“If we stay there, we will have to do something in the interest of the host country,” he said, adding that Moscow had offered to use its Hemeimeen air base and Tartus naval base to deliver humanitarian aid. “What those interests might be, what we might do for them, is a question that both sides need to thoroughly examine.”
He noted that the Syrian army had offered little resistance to the opposition offensive and said that Russia had sent 4,000 Iranian troops from its Hemeimeem air base to Tehran.
Putin began the session by saying that the Russian economy is on track to grow by nearly 4 percent this year. He acknowledged that consumer prices were high, with inflation at 9.3 percent, but insisted that the economic situation remained “stable.”
Putin avoided questions about abortion and pornography in Russia, as well as the burial of the body of the founder of the Soviet Union, Vladimir Lenin, which has been on display in the mausoleum on Red Square for almost a century.
The annual show is as much a spectacle as the press conference. Journalists in a hall near the Kremlin wave colorful signs and placards to attract Putin’s attention.
Russian state media reported that ordinary citizens submitted more than 2 million questions ahead of the show.
