Putin leaves the door open to a temporary truce to hold elections in Ukraine

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has spoken of declaring a temporary truce to hold elections in Ukraine, a demand that the United States has been launching and for which his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, was in favor for the first time a few days ago if the necessary security measures were met.

“We are willing to consider how to guarantee security during the elections in Ukraine. At least, refraining from carrying out attacks,” he said this Friday in a meeting with the press and citizens to take stock of the year.

Ukraine, under pressure from Donald Trump who has reminded Zelensky on several occasions since returning to the White House that he must call elections, has conditioned any electoral process on obtaining security guarantees.

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

Putin has pointed out that “sooner or later” the current authorities in kyiv have to legitimize themselves and that inevitably happens at the polls. However, he has warned that “if they intend to use the elections solely to stop the Russian military offensive, they are wrong,” according to the Interfax agency.

Nor has he missed the opportunity to recall the cases of corruption that have emerged in recent years in Ukraine, some of them even affecting Zelensky’s inner circle, and he has pointed out that because of them the management of “some type of external administration” could even be considered.