A MENACING Vladimir Putin has defied Donald Trump and declared he can “finish off” Ukraine despite an impending ceasefire.
The brutal tyrant has also unleashed a wave of fresh strikes on civilian targets and retaken a border village in Kursk.
Putin made the threat while visiting a nuclear submarine base in Russia’s frozen north – just a week after Sir Keir Starmer had a similar visit.
He launched a new nuclear submarine named the Perm – the first of its kind to be equipped with hypersonic Zircon missiles as a standard feature.
Vlad brushed aside peace moves declaring: “Not long ago I said we’d grind them [Ukraine] down — now it looks like we’ll finish them off.”
Putin also called for Volodymyr Zelensky to be ousted by generals and replaced by an internationally-supervised provisional government to hold elections.
The tyrant’s threats come as his forces bombed a liquid gas facility in the latest violation of pledges to halt such strikes.
Vlad’s forces also bombed a hospital in what Kyiv labelled as a “war crime”.
Russia also claims to have retaken the border village of Gogolevka from Ukraine in its Kursk region.
Putin has also given Trump his blessing to make a land grab for Greenland and said the US president’s ambitions should be taken “seriously”.
But the tyrant shot back saying Russian troops are ready for a war in the Arctic and warned Nato that Moscow would always protect its interest in the region.
Meanwhile, Zelensky called the ageing despot a “dinosaur who wants to eat us up” and insists the Kremlin is “not ready for talks”.
Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/13853765/trump-ukraine-russia-peace-talks-saudi-arabia-riyadh/
