By Athena Papakosta

The Russian President Vladimir Putingranted yesterday, Thursday, the established annual press conferenceanswering questions from journalists and Russian citizens for 4 hours and 31 minutes. As he spoke a screen behind him showed the map of the Russian Federation, including annexed territories of Ukraine.

He was comfortable and confident. He appeared once again as the man who has all the answers, while he wasn’t afraid to even make a show of humor.

Even when NBC reporter Keir Simmons pressed him – almost daring him to “stick him to the wall”, telling him that “you have failed to achieve the objectives of your special military operation, large numbers of Russians have died, including and a high-ranking official in Moscow this week and the leader of Syria, who you supported, has been overthrown” and so “when you will face the newly elected president Trump, you will be the weak leader” – the president of Russia imitated the famous incident with the American author Mark Twain to answer. “The rumors of my death are somewhat exaggerated,” he said as another Tom Sawyer “father” to the audience’s laughter.

A large part of the interview was devoted to ongoing war with him declaring himself open to talks on the condition that the facts on the ground will be taken into account, that they will be conducted based on the Agreements in Istanbul and if the Volodymyr Zelensky re-legitimized by elections president of Ukraine.

At the same time, he declared himself open to compromises on the end of the war in Ukraine, without, of course, explaining what those might include, while he has already ruled out Ukraine joining NATO and demanding that the West lift sanctions against it. Moscow.

He also emphasized that his country should have launched an attack against Ukraine earlier but… also be better prepared for war.

At the moment, for Putin, the Russian armed forces are making progress on the front “with each passing day” and his soldiers are, quite simply, “heroes”. In fact, he appeared so proud of them that he even presented a flag offered to him by Russian marines fighting in Kursk.

And when asked by a member of the audience whether the West “got the message” about the review of Russia’s nuclear doctrine, the Russian president replied that they would just have to ask the West.

Of course he emphasized Russia’s new Oresnik hypersonic ballistic missile, even going so far as to challenge the West to a missile duel, insisting that the Western camp would lose since the new Russian hypersonic ballistic missile can penetrate any US missile defense system

“Let’s name a target,” he said. “Let’s say, in Kyiv. There they can concentrate all their air defense and anti-missile defense forces, and we will hit this target with Oresnik and see what happens,” he emphasized, adding “we are ready for such an experiment. But is the other side ready?’

As for the name of the missile, Oresnik which means oak? Vladimir Putin, smiling slyly, replied that he had no idea.

At the same time, from Brussels, the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, called Putin a “stupid” or even a “madman who knows he is mad” adding that he “loves to kill”. He insisted on a clear next day, demanding security guarantees from both Brussels and Washington to avoid, as he emphasized, a “frozen conflict”.

Exactly one month from today, Donald Trump returns to the White House and has already promised a quick end to the war in Ukraine.

However, Moscow and Kiev do not bargain for their reservations either, with the Europeans, at the same time, trying to catch up with the developments.

Looking for the next step, they insist that Ukraine come to the table of peace negotiations from a position of strength. However, among them are those who disagree on the timing of the talks, stressing that any pressure to start negotiations too soon could be a bad deal for Ukraine. At the same time, the issue of sending a peacekeeping force to Kiev is also a source of disagreement.

A big question, however, remains what Donald Trump himself will do, with whom Putin, as he said, has been talking for four years, and Zelensky – who has already publicly admitted that his army does not have the power to recover the lands he lost – he longs to stand by his side.