Euan McDonald: Editor of New Voice of Ukraine chats Putin saying he thinks Ukraine conflict 'coming to an end'

Russian President Vladimir Putin said the war in Ukraine was nearing an end on the first day of a United States-brokered ceasefire, despite mutual accusations of violations.

Editor of New Voice of Ukraine Euan McDonald told Mike Hosking, "Putin makes these statements occasionally but, what we haven't seen really, is any major change in the situation.

"So there's not really any evidence that the war could be coming to an end. In fact, it actually seems to be escalating a bit."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So what do you reckon? Let to me, Putin means
when he sees the war could be coming to an end,
the victory provide, of course, over the weekend, scale back
the ceasefire for a couple of dives has been agreed.
There's even the prospect apparently of a Putin Zelensky meeting
you and McDonald is editor or the new Voice of
Ukraine anders with us from Kiev morning, A good morning mine.
What does this mean it's going to come to an end?

(00:20):
Is this material or not?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Difficult to say. Putin makes these stakes occasionally, but what
we haven't seen really is any major change in the situation.
So there's no really any evidence that the war could
be coming to an end. In fact, it actually seems
to be escalating a bit. Russia has been making threats
to attack the center of Kiev, and Ukraine has been

(00:44):
carrying quite a successful campaign of attacks on Russian oil refineries,
with about twenty attacks its the beginning of the year,
causing billions of dollars of damage to Russia's oil industry.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
The scale back victory parade, do we read much into
that or not?

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yes, Russia's suffering from a shortage of weapons it's losing
a tremendous amount on the front. It's having trouble raising
enough soldiers. It has already turned to other countries like
North Korea for extra troops. The Russians were notably anxious

(01:24):
about holding the parade. They issued a series of very
dire threats against the center of Kiev and warning embassies
even that Kiev might be hit if Ukraine made any
attempt to disrupt the parade. So they were very worried
that they knew Ukraine had the potential to disrupt the

(01:45):
parade with its long range drones. They were very worried
about it, and Ukraine took advantage of that fact rather mischievously.
Ukrainian President Lenski issued a decree guaranteeing that the parade
could go ahead in exchange for a ceasefire and a
prisoner swap.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
And has that been successful.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
Ukraine held up it's part of the bargain. There was
no disruption of the parade, but the prisoner swap is
still kind of in limbo at that this moment. It's
not certain if it will go ahead. Ukraine says that
it is in process and they're trying to work it
out with the Russians. The Russians have accused the Ukrainians

(02:28):
of dragging their feet on the matter, So we will see.
What I think is certain that once the three days
ceasefire is over, then we'll probably see return to hostilities again.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
I was going to say, where does this go?

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Ultimately, these ceasefires occur regularly. They are more better, they're
better described as operational pauses. Both sides use them to regroup, resupply,
rotate troops, and the fighting commonly returns almost as soon

(03:04):
as the deadline for the cease far expire expires. Both sides,
of course, are reporting numerous violations of the currency as
far anyway, so that it's uh, there's a pause on
major strikes on each other's territory. But the fighting really
has continued, albeit at a lower scale, all along the front,

(03:25):
all during the seas far.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
All right, you and I appreciate it. You and McDonald
out a key for us this morning.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
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