Russian President Vladimir Putin talked for more than three hours during an annual news conference in Moscow on Thursday, discussing key topics including the war in Ukraine, his interest in dialogue with President-elect Trump and an openness to asking about detained journalist Austin Tice in Syria.
Putin’s end-of-the-year news conference has always attracted a large audience but has been followed more intensely since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Putin actually canceled the news conference at the end of 2022, following major setbacks in the war.
Here are the biggest takeaways from his 2024 press conference.
Tice
Putin said he would inquire about Tice, an American freelance journalist who went missing in Syria in 2012.
Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad fled to Moscow after the fall of his regime earlier this month. Russia has supported the fallen autocrat since the civil war broke out in 2011.
“I have not seen President Assad [since] he arrived in Moscow,” Putin said. “I plan to do so and I will have a conversation with him.”
Trump and Biden
Putin appeared to show interest in a meeting with Trump.
“If we hold a meeting at some time with President-elect Trump, I’m sure we’ll have something to discuss,” he said.
Trump has decried the war in Ukraine as a tragedy and has vowed to end it by the time he takes office on Jan. 20, although he recently acknowledged the difficult of negotiations.
Putin also quipped about President Biden’s controversial pardon of his son Hunter this month, saying that it was a “very delicate subject.”
“Whether [an official is] a politician or a human is an important question,” he said. “It turned out that Biden had more [humanity], so I wouldn’t condemn him for that.”
Syria
Russia’s future in Syria is in peril following the collapse earlier this month of Assad’s regime.
Moscow has two military bases in Syria, Hmeimim air base and Tartus naval base.
Putin said that Russia is in touch with the opposition groups in Syria that toppled Assad’s regime, which are led by Hayat Tahrir al Sham.
“Today, the situation is quite complicated,” he said. “We expect and hope that the peace and calm will come there.
“We have established relations with all groups that control the situation on the ground and with all countries in the region and the majority of them are telling us that they have an interest for our military bases in Syria to remain in place,” he continued.
Putin explained Russia is also considering its future, including whether the bases in Syria could be used for humanitarian operations.
Ukraine
Putin said he wanted to secure a lasting peace in Ukraine rather than a ceasefire.
“They will receive time to re-equip their divisions,” he said of Ukrainian forces in a ceasefire.
“What we need is not a ceasefire, ” he added. “Instead we need a lasting peace with guarantees for the Russian Federation.”
Putin claimed that Russia has tried to secure a peace deal multiple times but that Ukraine has stood in the way.
“We are prepared but the other side must be prepared as well to negotiate and to compromise,” he said.
Putin also accused Ukraine of “terrorist actions” and condemned the murder of Russian Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov this week after a bomb exploded in his scooter. Kirillov was the head of Russia’s nuclear and chemical defense forces.
“We need to improve our work and make sure such things never occur again,” Putin said.
Putin said in hindsight, he should have invaded Ukraine earlier than in February 2022.
The war “started because we could not tolerate it anymore and wait for the situation to deteriorate further,” he said.
But Putin also said if he had known about the setbacks in 2022 his military would face, Russia would have “prepared in a systemic, real, serious way.”
Putin said his forces were making progress in eastern Ukraine and in retaking territory in the Russian region of Kursk, which Ukrainian forces invaded in August.
New Russian missile
Putin also talked about Russia’s new experimental missile, Oreshnik, which Russian forces fired into Ukraine for the first time last month.
Oreshnik is an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) that Putin claimed could travel at more than 10 times the speed of sound.
Putin made a televised appearance last month to announce the firing of the Oreshnik, which came just days after the U.S. lifted a restriction on Ukraine to allow Ukrainian troops to fire long-range missiles deep into Russia.
At the news conference, Putin said the new missile was a “cutting-edge” IRBM that will be hard for Ukraine to defend against.
“There is no chance the missile is going to be brought down,” he said, appearing to challenge the West to a “fighting duel” to see if they can shoot down Oreshnik over a target in Ukraine.
