Russia proposes 30% increase in size of armed forces

The Kremlin on Thursday accused Kyiv and Washington of turning a deaf ear to its concerns and charged the United States was using Ukraine as a battleground to weaken Russia. It came as President Vladimir Putin insisted Russia was aiming for a speedy end to the fighting. "Our goal is... to end this conflict. We are striving for this", he told reporters. "We will seek to make sure that it all ends, and the sooner, the better."All conflicts end, some way or another, with talks... The faster our adversaries (in Kyiv) understand that, the better it will be," Putin said. Moscow's military chief has said Russian forces are now concentrated on wresting control of the eastern Donetsk region where the battered city of Bakhmut has become an epicenter of fighting. Hours before the Ukrainian president's visit to the US, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow would next year continue developing its military potential and the combat readiness of its nuclear forces.Putin gave his backing  to a plan to boost the size of the armed forces by more than 30% as he said Moscow needed to learn from and fix the problems it had suffered in Ukraine.

Commenting on the meeting between both the leaders, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, "We can say with regret that so far neither President Biden nor President Zelenskyy have said even a few words that could be perceived as potential readiness to listen to Russia's concerns." "Not a single word was heard warning Zelenskyy against the continued shelling of residential buildings in towns and villages in Donbas and there were no real calls for peace," Peskov said. This suggests that the United States is continuing its line of de facto fighting an indirect war with Russia to the last Ukrainian, he added.

President Zelenskyy enjoyed a hero's welcome on a lightning trip to Washington where US President Joe Biden committed nearly $1.8 billion in military supplies including, for the first time, the Patriot missile defence system. Zelenskyy spent less than 10 hours in Washington. He, however, told cheering US legislators that against all odds, his country still stands.