New Delhi: “Let them try,” was Russian President Vladimir Putin’s defiant message to the West on Thursday, stressing that the war would continue until “the last Ukrainian was left standing”.
“We have continuously heard that the West is ready to fight with us until the last Ukrainian is left standing. This is a tragedy for the Ukrainian people. However, it seems like everything is going towards this,” he said, addressing heads of party factions in the Russian assembly, the Duma.
He added: “Today we hear that they want to defeat us on the battlefield. Well, what can I say? Let them try.”
Putin warned that the further the conflict dragged on, the more difficult it would become for peace negotiations.
He also said the West was “encouraging and justifying genocide against people in Donbas”, according to CNN.
Meanwhile, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told CNN that the country would not cede any of its land to Russia in order to end the war.
“This is our land,” Zelenskyy said in an exclusive interview.
Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February – an act it calls “a special military operation” – after years of hostility culminated in a full-scale invasion following Ukraine’s closeness to the US-dominated military alliance, NATO.
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