Putin's cracks showing as warmonger claims he's ready for peace after Ukrainian onslaught

The Russian despot on Tuesday described the Ukrainian strikes as a ploy to “destabilise society”. Mr Putin said: “Russia, however, as has been stated repeatedly, is ready for peace negotiations with Ukraine. It is ready to proceed on the basis of the agreements reached back in Istanbul, agreements which, I would remind you, were initiated at the time by the Ukrainian delegation.

“That means they were satisfied with them. And I see no grounds for us to depart from those agreements.”

He added: “Strikes against civilian infrastructure – what are they aimed at? To destabilise society, amid such a massive onslaught, when the entire West is working for them and these drones are coming in huge numbers, to create a sense of uncertainty about the actions of the Russian armed forces.”

Russia has regularly targeted Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure during the war, most notably its energy system during the last winter.

Restrictions on fuel sales are in place in regions across Russia amid soaring prices and long queues at filling stations.

On Wednesday, the Interfax news agency — citing the Russian government — reported Russian deputy prime minister Alexander Novak had ordered fuel deliveries to be prioritised to regions where logistics depend on seasonal factors.

It was the second time the refinery had been struck in a matter of days and the Reuters news agency, citing sources, reports it will be offline for at least six months after suffering significant damage.

Overnight, the Ukrainian military said it struck a natural gas processing plant and two key satellite communications facilities in their latest nighttime attacks on Russia.

Ukraine’s aerial campaign targeting energy facilities and military industries has intensified as Kyiv builds bigger and better long-range weapons to repel Russia’s full-scale invasion.