STORY: :: Reuters' Russia reporter is 'absolutely flabbergasted' by Putin's comments on the Ukraine war ending
:: Moscow, Russia / May 10, 2026
:: Guy Faulconbridge, Russia Bureau Chief
"The comment itself absolutely flabbergasted us in Moscow. Uh, you know, I actually said to a colleague of mine, I said, "Have you ever heard Putin say anything like that before in the last four years?" And he said, "I've never heard that before."
"So it's really difficult to understand what he means. What he said was that he thinks that the war is basically coming to an end, that the matter's drawing to conclusion. What's really strange is that Vladimir Putin does not, um, say things like this just out of the blue. He's very careful with words.
"Just hours earlier, he stood on Red Square, um, and vowed victory in the war, um, using the sort of history of, uh, of, of the Soviet, um, uh, defeat of Nati-Nazi Germany. It was a much more pared down Victory Day. Um, I've never seen one like that. I've been covering Russia for, for over twenty years. I've never seen one as kind of pared down as that.
Dnipro, Ukraine / April 25, 2026
Druzhkivka, Ukraine / April 25, 2026
"Russia's been very clear, uh, certainly over the last year, that it wants to get, um, all of Donbas, so that-- At, at the moment, Russia has about ninety, more-- bit more than ninety percent of Donbas. Uh, so, um, that's about five thousand square kilometers they still need to get if they're gonna achieve getting Donbas. That looks very, very difficult, um, at the current rate, uh, which is actually the rate of Russian advance, which has actually gone down this year."
"I think that the matter is coming to an end," Putin told reporters of the Russia-Ukraine war, Europe's deadliest conflict since World War Two. He also said he would be willing to negotiate new security arrangements for Europe, and that his preferred negotiating partner would be Germany's former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.
Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine triggered the most serious crisis in relations between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when many people feared the world was on the brink of nuclear war.
The Kremlin has said peace talks brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration were on pause. Putin has repeatedly vowed to fight on until all of Russia's various war aims are achieved in what Moscow calls the "special military operation."
