Putin leaves door open for temporary truce to hold elections in Ukraine

MADRID, December 19 (EUROPA PRESS) –

Russian President Vladimir Putin has spoken of declaring a temporary truce for holding elections in Ukraine, a demand initiated by the United States and to which his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky first said he favored a few days ago if the necessary security measures were respected.

“We are ready to think about how to guarantee security during the elections in Ukraine. At least, avoiding carrying out attacks,” he said Friday during a meeting with the press and citizens to take stock of the year.

Ukraine, under pressure from Donald Trump who has repeatedly reminded Zelensky since his return to the White House that he must call elections, has made any electoral process conditional on obtaining security guarantees.

Security guarantees that Moscow has not obtained in these years and this does not mean that it has not organized elections, as Putin boasted, and set as a condition for sealing this truce that Ukrainian citizens residing in Russia can freely participate in these elections.

Putin stressed that “sooner or later” the current kyiv authorities will have to legitimize themselves and this will inevitably happen during the elections. However, he warned that “if they intend to use the elections only to stop the Russian military offensive, they are wrong”, according to the Interfax agency.

He also did not miss the opportunity to recall the cases of corruption that have occurred in recent years in Ukraine, some of them even affecting Zelensky’s entourage, and he stressed that thanks to them, the management of a “kind of external administration” could even be considered.