June 29 (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy mocked Russia’s military drive on Monday, saying the Kremlin over the course of more than four years had set and put off 15 deadlines to capture the eastern Donbas region.
Zelenskiy’s comments amounted to a response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rejection a day earlier of what the Kremlin leader said was a Ukrainian proposal to abandon long-range strikes and scale down the fighting.
He said Putin’s comments showed he was out of touch with the feelings of Russians who faced queues at petrol stations, linked to a Ukrainian campaign of strikes on oil industry targets.
“Even an oil-producing state, a ‘gas station’ as Russia has often been called, is now facing fuel shortages,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.
“This is a direct consequence of the war. One of many consequences. It is also one example of how Ukraine responds — with precision, not through terrorism.”
Zelenskiy explained at considerable length what he said had been 15 deadlines set — and later put back — by the Kremlin over the course of four years to capture four regions in eastern Ukraine — Donetsk and Luhansk in Donbas, and Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.
“Russia’s political leadership remains obsessed with Donbas,” he said. “If Russia does not end the war, it will have to postpone that deadline once again.”
In the weeks following the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Russian forces initially tried to advance on the capital Kyiv, but when they failed to complete that advance they withdrew and focused efforts on capturing Donbas.
Russia has captured all of the Luhansk region and large chunks of the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.
Although Moscow’s forces are slowly moving westward through Donetsk region, Ukrainian officials say the advance has slowed considerably while Ukraine steps up its campaign of medium and long-range drone strikes.
In a televised interview on Sunday, Putin said Russian forces would press ahead with their battlefield aim of fully capturing the four Ukrainian regions.
He acknowledged that Russians were subject to fuel shortages but rejected what he said was a new Ukrainian proposal to rein in hostilities as a ploy to relieve pressure on Kyiv’s military.
Zelenskiy, who this month wrote an open letter to Putin calling for a one-on-one meeting, made no comment on what the Russian president portrayed as a new proposal.
Zelenskiy said Ukraine had already put forward proposals to move towards an end of the war “and Russia rejects them every time”.
He said Russians who had yet to be subject to mobilisation “and are currently arguing in fuel queues should think carefully about what awaits them”.
(Reporting by Ron Popeski and Oleksandr Kozhukhar; Editing by Sonali Paul)
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