President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday that Russia will press ahead with its battlefield aim of fully capturing four Ukrainian regions, rejecting what he said was a new proposal by Ukraine to rein in hostilities in the more than four-year-old war.
Putin, speaking to a Russian state television interviewer, also said Russia needed to boost its air defence capacity to counter intensified Ukrainian drone attacks aimed mainly at its oil industry. He said Russia was coping well in tackling fuel supply problems linked to the Ukrainian strikes.
