ST. PETERSBURG, June 5. /TASS/. The peace treaty between Russia and Ukraine in 2022 was thwarted by those who wanted to achieve their foreign policy goals in Russia's direction, namely the destruction and strategic defeat of the country, President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with heads of international news agencies organized by TASS.

"I have a rhetorical question: why was it necessary to prevent us and Ukraine from signing this agreement? I can only assume that someone wanted to achieve the goals they had set for themselves in the direction of Russian foreign policy, namely to bring the matter to Russia's destruction, to achieve its strategic defeat at any cost, and so on and so forth," Putin said.