LIVE: Putin backs Donald Trump over $10 billion BBC lawsuit

Russian soldiers could be ordered to halt long-range missile and drone strikes on Ukraine on voting day, if Kyiv holds a presidential election that Moscow and Washington are pushing for.

Vladimir Putin said he would be prepared to make the directive.

‘We are ready to consider ensuring security during elections in Ukraine. At least refraining from strikes deep into Ukraine on election day,’ Putin said during a televised press conference.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky’s five-year term as president was due to end in May last year but elections have been suspended in the country since martial law was declared after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

One Russian took the opportunity during his question to Vladimir Putin to propose to his partner.

Kirill Bazhanov, a 23-year-old student wearing a red bow ​tie and a flower in his buttonhole, proposed live on air to his girlfriend Olga, who he said was watching on TV.

He invited Putin to the wedding, before asking a question about financial support for young families.

Vladimir Putin uses his major annual press conference to cement his power and air his views on domestic and global affairs.

This year, the news conference took place against the backdrop of a peace plan in Ukraine put forward by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Despite the extensive diplomatic push, Washington’s efforts have run into sharply conflicting demands from Moscow and Kyiv.

Let’s remind ourselves what Putin is calling for:

• He wants all the areas in four key regions captured by his forces, as well as the Crimean Peninsula, illegally annexed in 2014, to be recognised as Russian territory.
• Putin has also insisted that Ukraine withdraw from some areas in eastern Ukraine that Moscow’s forces haven’t captured yet. Kyiv has publicly rejected this demand.
• The Kremlin has also insisted that Ukraine abandon its bid to join NATO and warned that it wouldn’t accept the deployment of any troops from members of the military alliance members and would view them as ‘legitimate target.’
• Putin also has repeatedly said Ukraine must limit the size of its army and give official status to the Russian language – demands he has made from the outset of the conflict.

Ukraine has struck a Russian ‘shadow fleet’ tanker with drones in the Mediterranean Sea for the first time, Kyiv revealed today.

The cargo ship was sailing in an undisclosed location around 1,243 miles from Ukraine’s borders when it was hit in a ‘new, unprecedented special operation’, a source in the Security Service of Ukraine said.

The source claimed that the tanker, called the Qendil, had ‘sustained critical damage and cannot be used for its intended purpose’.

The explosive attack on the empty vessel was the first of its kind in the Mediterranean – representing a dangerous development in the near four-year war between Russia and Ukraine.

Ukrainian news agency RBC-Ukraine published dramatic footage, purportedly showing the tanker being struck with explosives.

Estimated to include up to 1,000 ships, which frequently change their flags and whose ownership is unclear, Russia’s shadow fleet has enabled Moscow to keep exporting its crude oil for much-needed revenue despite curbs on exports.

Putin commented on a Ukrainian strike on a Russian tanker on Friday morning, stating that Moscow will retaliate.

The strike was the first time Ukrainian drones hit a Russian tanker in the Mediterranean Sea, some 1,000 miles away from Ukraine.

Putin said that Russia usually responds with ‘much stronger strikes’ against Ukraine and warned that a threat to blockade Russia’s city of Kaliningrad would ‘lead to unseen escalation of the conflict’.

Sarcastic messages briefly flashed up on the big screen ‌in the hall where Vladimir Putin was holding his annual press conference and phone-in earlier today.

‘Not ​a direct line, but a ​circus,’ said one such ​comment.

Another, using Putin’s first name and patronymic, read: ‘Vladimir Vladimirovich, it’s ⁠Friday already, can we break out the booze?’

The ​rogue comments appeared ‍on screens showing ​incoming text messages intended for Putin at the marathon annual event, for which ordinary Russians are encouraged to submit ‍questions.

The ‍Kremlin did not immediately comment on their appearance at what is a meticulously planned and choreographed press conference watched by millions of Russians. ⁠Putin did not refer to them.

One message, alluding to the state of Russia’s economy, asked ⁠why ordinary Russians were worse off than people in Papua New Guinea.

Another, referring to Putin’s governing United Russia party, said: ‘Looking at life ‍in the country, ⁠it is strange that (it) wins a majority in elections! Maybe elections are a fiction?’

Europe will have to re-engage in direct talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin if the latest US-led efforts to broker a Ukraine peace deal founder, French President Emmanuel Macron said today.

European leaders wary of Putin’s future military ambitions have smarted at their exclusion from peace talks led ​by President Donald Trump’s administration, compelled instead to shore up Ukraine’s negotiating positions from the ​sidelines.

‘Either a robust and lasting peace is reached, ​with the required (security) guarantees,’ Macron told reporters in Brussels, ‘or we will need in the weeks ahead to find ways for Europeans to re-engage in a fulsome dialogue with Russia, and in complete ⁠transparency.’

The Russian president said Russia would be ​ready to stop ​the war ​in Ukraine immediately if ⁠it received guarantees of ​its ‍security ​and that Moscow had no intention of attacking ‍Europe.

Putin also told his annual end-of-year press conference that Russia ⁠was open for cooperation “on equal ⁠terms” with the West.

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Putin said Trump was right in filing a $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the BBC after the broadcaster edited clips of a speech by the president that made it appear he directed supporters to storm the US Capital.

The BBC has apologised to Trump and has said it will defend the case.

Putin praised Donald Trump for “making serious efforts” to end the conflict in Ukraine.

“As I have said repeatedly, I think he is doing so in an absolutely sincere manner,” he said about the US president.

His remarks about Trump come as the US president has unleashed an extensive diplomatic push to end nearly four years fighting following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

But Washington’s efforts to end the conflict have seemingly run into sharply conflicting demands by Moscow and Kyiv.

Putin said Russia had cooperated with NATO, but that ‘the promises that were given to us about non-expansion were false’.

“There were certain waves of NATO expansion… this caused our concern in the past and causes us concern now.”

Putin has frequently blamed the military alliance’s expansion in Ukraine for its invasion.

Since 2001, Russian President Vladimir Putin has held a press conference at the end of the year.

He typically uses it to field dozens of questions on everything from nuclear weapons to the price of eggs.

Some are posed by journalists and others by ordinary Russians, who can submit them online or by phone.

The Kremlin said it had received more ⁠than 2.6 million questions in advance.

It styles the event as a demonstration of Putin’s openness to respond to questions on any topic, and his willingness to respond to the concerns of citizens.