PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY, August 31, /ITAR-TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday he did not expect the Ukrainian crisis settlement anytime soon, as the country is entering the parliamentary election campaign period.
He said in an interview to Russia’s TV Channel One that “the problem is that the country is in the run-up to the parliamentary elections, and all the participants in the already started race want to demonstrate their ‘coolness’.”
“All want to show themselves as strong guys, and in these conditions of the intensifying political struggle it will be hard to hope that people with a clear-cut position, aimed at finding a peaceful solution rather than settling the problem by force, will appear,” he said.
“But we, nevertheless, we hope for the better,” Putin added.
The Russian president declined to forecast the time of the crisis settlement.
“This to a considerable extent depends on the political will of the current Ukrainian leadership,” he said.