Russia’s Putin rules out ceasefire with Ukraine during speech in Moscow

What the report says

Russian President Vladimir Putin used a speech at the Valdai political forum in Moscow to rule out a ceasefire on long-range strikes with Ukraine, even as the war’s aerial campaign intensified. Al Jazeera reported that Putin dismissed the idea of a mutual pause in attacks on refineries and ships, and said Moscow was responding to Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure.

The article said Putin also signaled that Russia still preferred a negotiated end to the war and wanted Ukraine to remain neutral after hostilities end. His remarks came after recent discussions between U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in New York, where Zelenskyy said Kyiv could stop striking Russian oil refineries if Moscow halted attacks on Ukrainian energy sites.

A central focus of Putin’s comments was the Russian Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad, which sits between Poland and Lithuania. He warned that if the territory were directly attacked or cut off, Russia could resort to “all the weapons” at its disposal, including nuclear arms if necessary. Al Jazeera noted that NATO had recently received a Russian diplomatic warning about possible nuclear retaliation in such a scenario.

The report also described the wider impact of the conflict, including intensified Russian strikes on Ukraine’s infrastructure and a drone hit on a school in Kyiv that caused no reported casualties because people were sheltering.