Peace is impossible in Ukraine, Kremlin press secretary declares

Dmitry Peskov, press secretary of Russian President Vladimir Putin, stated that it's impossible to talk about peace in Ukraine at the moment, according to pro-Kremlin news outlet RIA Novost.

Peskov, seen here with Putin, declared that Russia will continue fighting to conquer and maintain its presence in what is considered Ukrainian territory.

“There are no preconditions for a peaceful transition of the process. For us the absolute priority continues to be and will always remain the achievement of our goals,” Peskov argued.

The Kremlin Press Secretary also highlighted these goals could only be achieved by military means at the moment.

Peskov also commented on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's proposal of renaming Russia Muscovy.

“The Russian Federation will remain a great state, a great country, and it will remain Russia, whatever someone else calls it,”

This is hardly the first time Moscow has given controversial statements about Ukraine's fate.

Al Jazeera reported on July 23 that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov declared that it was within the Kremlin’s objectives to overthrow the Ukrainian government.

Lavrov claimed that Russia was determined to help Ukrainians “liberate themselves from the burden of this absolutely unacceptable regime”.

These comments contradict earlier statements by the Russian government, claiming that the invasion of Ukraine was simply a special military operation to protect the people of Donetsk and Luhansk and “denazify” the country.

“The Russian and Ukrainian peoples will continue to live together. We will help the Ukrainian people get rid of the absolutely anti-popular and anti-historic regime”, Lavrov pledged, during a diplomatic visit to Cairo.

“We are sorry for those who have yielded to the Kyiv regime’s state propaganda and for those who support this regime, which wants Ukraine to be Russia’s eternal enemy”, The Russian Foreign Minister stated.

News website Ukrainska Pravda highlights the response of Mykhailo Podoliak, an advisor from the Office of the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky. Podoliak decried the Russian Foreign Minister’s statements as “schizophrenic”.

“In the morning, you declare that Moscow wants negotiations, and in the evening, you claim that your goal is to get rid of the ‘anti-popular Kyiv regime’”, the presidential advisor pointed out.

“‘Regimes’ are something we find in Russian prisons, while in Ukraine there is a legally elected government that won in fair, competitive, democratic elections. So many words unfamiliar to the Russian elite in one sentence”, Podoliak joked.

The Washington Post reported that previously, Lavrov had mentioned that Russia intends to extend its control beyond the Donbas region, specifically the southern oblasts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. So far, this has failed to materialize.