President Vladimir Putin said Russia had only just begun in Ukraine and challenged the West to try to defeat it on the battlefield.
In an ultra-hawkish speech to parliamentary leaders more than four months after the war began, Putin said the prospects for any talks would grow bleaker the longer the conflict drags on.
“Today we hear that they want to defeat us on the battlefield. What can you say, let them try,” he said.
“We have heard many times that the West wants to fight with us to the last Ukrainian. It’s a tragedy for the Ukrainian people, but it seems that everything is working towards that.”
Russia accuses the West of waging a proxy war against it, hitting its economy with sanctions and ramping up supplies of advanced weapons to Ukraine.
But while boasting that Russia was just getting into its stride, Putin also hinted at the possibility of negotiations.
“Everybody should know that in general we haven’t started anything serious yet,” he added. “At the same time, we do not reject peace talks. But those who reject them should know that the further it goes, the harder it will be for them to negotiate with us.
It was the first mention of diplomacy in many weeks after repeated statements from Moscow that talks with Kyiv had completely broken down.
Since invading Ukraine on February 24, Russian forces have seized large swathes of the country, including completing their takeover of the eastern Luhansk region last Sunday.
But Russia’s progress has been much slower than many analysts predicted, and Russian forces have been repulsed in initial attempts to capture the capital Kyiv and second city Kharkiv.
(Reporting by Mark Trevelyan in London Editing by Leslie Adler)
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