Panicking Putin sent dire coup warning – ‘Russia gets tired’ | World | News

Vladimir Putin has been sent a dire coup warning by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who also brutally mocked the Russia despot’s “old age”. Putin, 73, dodged a plea from Zelensky to show leadership and meet him soon to end the war scarring Europe.

The Ukrainian leader warned Putin his own people could topple him in a revolution if he failed to end his unpopular conflict which has seen almost half a million Russians killed. Intelligence assessments show Putin is plotting war plans for the next two years but even his friends were showing “weariness towards Russia“, said Zelensky, 48. “You can’t fail to notice this. After 26 years, old age has started to take its toll,” he mocked the Russian dictator. “The more time passes, the greater the weariness towards you will be.”

Zelensky swiped at Putin, who will be 74 this year, over past Kremlin rulers thrown out in coups, like last tsar Nicholas II and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.

“You will also have to fight much harder for your existence – not Russia‘s, but your own. And this is not a threat from me or Ukraine. “These are facts of Russian history, which you know well: when Russia gets tired, changes occur.” Putin could “work towards such exhaustion” or “you can stop your war.”

Intimating that Putin was lying to Russians that he is making gains across the frontline, Zelensky said the truth was that 63% of current Russian losses were fatalities and with Ukraine gaining the upper hand “the proportion of killed will increase”.

Ukraine’s losses were six times smaller, he said. “I propose to set a clear date for the meeting,” said Zelensky, who urged talks in Switzerland, Turkey or an Arab state.

He called on Putin not to drag Europe through more years of war, alleging the dictator was seeking to pull Belarus and a separatist region of Moldova into the conflict, demanding: “Do you really want to go through all of this?”

Putin’s officials said they were showing Zelensky’s open letter to him, but his spokesman insisted the despot would only meet the Ukrainian leader in Moscow – where he could be detained. “If Zelensky wants to talk, he can come to Moscow and do so,” said Dmitry Peskov, using a formula designed to block talks.

Meanwhile Putin – speaking in his Konstantinovsky Palace in St Petersburg – claimed it was too soon to write him off.

“I believe it was Mark Twain who said it: ‘The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated’,” he smirked as he stifled coughs.

He proceeded to threaten to run again in 2030, allowing him too rule until the age of 83. Only God knows whether we will have the health—myself, you, and everyone here—to live until tomorrow or the day after,” he said.

But he stressed: “Indeed, the constitution allows me to run for re-election in 2030 [even if] it is too early to talk about that.”

He told journalists attending the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum [SPIEF] — aka “Russian Davos” — that he was winning on the frontline, despite strong evidence to the contrary, and dismissed Zelensky’s “legitimacy” as Ukrainian president, while ranting about Nazis.

“We were prophesied defeat on the battlefield, that the [Russian] economy was in tatters. But we shouldn’t confuse wishful thinking with reality,” he said.

But he also said: “As for what might be said to one another should we reach the end of the conflict—at the very least, one could and should say: thank God it is over.

Despite Zelensky’s plea for an end to the war, at least two people died and 15 injured including children in a Russian attack on Ukraine’s Sumy region. Ukrainian drones ignited an oil depot in Russian-occupied Luhansk, amid petrol shortages and rationing across multiple regions.