Russia's Vladimir Putin hinted that the conflict with Ukraine was nearing an end amid a three-day truce brokered by US President Donald Trump.
The Russian president was speaking to reporters on Saturday after a scaled down Victory Day parade in Moscow marking the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.
The remarks came just hours after Putin vowed victory in the conflict with Ukraine as the ceasefire brokered by US President Donald Trump appeared to hold on despite some accusations of violations by Kyiv and Moscow.
"Victory has always been and will be ours," Putin remarked as military personnel lined up for a scaled-down parade on Red Square.
"I think that the matter is coming to an end," the Russian President said on the conflict with Ukraine, which started in 2022, AP reported.
The Russian president has often invoked Victory Day parade to shore up nationalistic sentiments, recalling the 27 million Soviet fighters who lost lives in the 1941-45 World War II. Putin also slammed Western allies as "global elites" arming Ukraine to defeat his country.
"They spent months waiting for Russia to suffer a crushing defeat, for its statehood to collapse. It didn't work out," he said.
Putin said he was ready to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a third country, with a rider that it should happen "only once all conditions for a potential peace pact" has been worked out.
"This should be the final point, not the negotiations themselves," he said.
Putin even went to the extent of naming former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder as his preferred European Union negotiator for talks with Ukraine, DW.com reported.
US President Donald Trump had also hinted that at an end to the conflict was nearing. In a Truth Social post, he wrote, this will be the"beginning of the end of a very long, deadly, and hard fought war."
Trump had said he himself made the request for a ceasefire, adding, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's Vladimir Zelensky agreed to the truce.
Moscow had declared a unilateral ceasefire for Friday and Saturday, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had announced a truce that was to start on May 6. Though neither of these announcements had the desired effect, Trump's truce call seemed to have mattered as the warring nations exercised restraint.
Putin said he would be willing to hold talks on new security arrangements for Europe, considered a signal to Western nations scrambling to get a place on the table amid the peace efforts initiated by Trump.
But EU leaders are wary of Putin's naming of Schröder, whom Western nations consider as a close friend of the Russian leader, The Guardian reported.
The former German leader also has reported business interests in Russia including in projects like the Nord Stream gas pipelines.
Putin has ruled Russia for a quarter century, but the prolonged war in Ukraine, which has killed hundreds of Russian soldiers, has battered the morale of the country's armed forces and dragged its economy.
Moscow controls just under one-fifth of Ukrainian territory four years into the conflict, which Russia hoped to wrap in weeks when it began.
