Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky believes Russia is preparing to continue the war in Ukraine for another year. The comments came after Vladimir Putin stated that his military forces would achieve their objectives “without a doubt.” The president wrote on his Twitter account that after seeing signals from Russia, he concludes that the conflict will continue for longer and calls for awareness and a response. "Today we heard signals again from Moscow that they are preparing to turn next year into a year of war. These signals are not just for us. It is crucial that our partners see them, and not only see them, but also respond, especially our partners in the United States, who often claim that Russia wants to end the war," Zelensky wrote. “Disguising their desire to destroy Ukraine” The Ukrainian president emphasized that Russian authorities are trying to “undermine diplomacy” by seeking “various formulations” in the proposals being made during negotiations, “to disguise their desire to destroy Ukraine and their willingness to legitimize the theft of our territory.”

“This Russian mentality must be recognized and acted upon. When Russia adopts this mentality, it will also undermine diplomacy by seeking, through diplomatic language and pressure on specific points in documents, to simply mask its desire to destroy Ukraine and the Ukrainians, and its desire to legitimize Russia's theft of our territory. And then there are other countries in Europe, which someday someone in Russia might call their so-called 'historical territories,'” he declared.

Frozen Assets

Zelensky also referred to the European Council meeting scheduled for Thursday and Friday of this week in Brussels, where the 27 member states are to decide whether to use Russian assets frozen in their jurisdiction to continue financing Ukraine.

“It is a very important meeting. The outcome of the meeting is the outcome for Europe. Russia must feel that its desire to wage war again next year will be pointless because Ukraine will have support,” he declared.

Although most EU countries are in favor of using frozen Russian assets to help Kyiv, Belgium,the custodian of most of the assets, opponents said taking this step for fear of the legal repercussions if Russia takes it to court.

“The objectives of the military operation will be achieved”

For his part, Vladimir Putin that the objectives of the Russian invasion of Ukraine would be achieved “without any doubt,” especially those of a territorial nature.

“The objectives of the special military operation will be achieved, without any doubt,” Putin said at a meeting with senior officials of the Ministry of Defense in Moscow.

“We would prefer to achieve this and eliminate the root causes of the conflict through diplomacy,” but “if the rival country and its foreign backers refuse to talk in a substantive way,” we will do so “by "The military option," the Russian president added.

With information from Deutsche Welle