Putin’s Slip of the Tongue Destroys His Favorite Ukraine Narrative

Vladimir Putin has said that Russia was unwilling to give up territory in Ukraine that had been “conquered,” in what appeared to be a shift in language over the reasons for his full-scale invasion.

The Russia president has used various arguments to justify the war, such as protecting Russian speakers in the Donbas region, pushing back against the encroachment of NATO towards Russian borders and “denazifying” Ukraine—a claim dismissed by Kyiv and the international community.

The Kremlin has kept a tight lid on descriptions of the war, which is officially referred to by state media outlets as a “special military operation,” although at the end of 2022, ten months into the conflict, Putin first referred to it as a “war” in comments to reporters.

However, on Tuesday there was an apparent shift in tone from Putin, whose comments suggested his invasion had been spurred by imperial ambitions—an assessment already made by analysts and international leaders but one that has not come from Putin or the Kremlin directly.

“As for this negotiation process, it is an attempt to encourage us to abandon what we have conquered over the past year and a half,” Putin told the heads of municipalities from throughout the country in comments posted on the Kremlin website.

“This is impossible. Everyone understands that this is impossible, these ruling circles in Ukraine, understand this, and the Western elites understand this,” he said.

A clip of Putin’s comments was posted on X, formerly Twitter, by Ukrainian internal affairs adviser Anton Gerashchenko, who wrote: “Putin openly spoke about what Russia conquered in Ukraine instead of his usual rhetoric about ‘liberation’ or ‘denazification. Was it deliberate or a slip of the tongue? Your thoughts?”

The clip, which as of Wednesday morning had received more than 260,000 views, prompted a thread in which one user, Stand by Ukraine, wrote: “I think there’s was a good chance this ‘slip of tongue’ was intended for foreign leaders to show that he won’t agree to give up the Crimea land bridge.”

Another user wrote that Putin was “indicating that his real reason for the invasion was conquest and territory.”

The account Russian Propaganda said: “He is (an) expansionist.”

Putin further explained on Tuesday why peace talks were not possible.

“These so-called peace formulas, which are talked about in the West and in Ukraine, are a continuation of the implementation of the decree of the President of Ukraine banning negotiations with Russia,” he said. “These are prohibitive requirements for the negotiation process.”

Senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations Gustav Gressel told Newsweek that Putin is not interested in negotiations because his “overall strategy is to win a long war of attrition.”

“That’s the problem for Western politicians,” he said. “They always apply their own premises—that you should end wars as quickly as possible. For Putin, that’s not his mindset, he wants to win wars, not to end them.”

“If Russia is on the losing side in a long war, then the dream of the Europeans and the America and the Biden administration will come true because once down the losing side, they will cry for negotiations,” Gressel said. “They don’t do it now because they don’t think they are losing. “

President Volodymr Zelensky has ruled out talks or a ceasefire while Russian troops remain in Ukraine, telling the World Economic Forum in Davos that only a decisive win for his country could bring an end to the fighting.