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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday that he does not “quite understand if [Russian President Vladimir Putin] is alive or whether he makes decisions.”
“Right now, I don’t understand who to talk to. I am not sure whether the president of Russia is still alive,” Zelensky said in a virtual broadcast at the WEC’s Ukrainian breakfast.
“What group of people [could be making any decisions in Russia]? I don’t have that kind of information,” he added.
“I don’t quite understand how you can promise European leaders one thing, and the next day launch a full-scale invasion of a country. I just don’t quite understand with whom we are dealing. When we say ‘peace talks,’ I don’t quite understand with whom [we should be negotiating],” he said.
“We are talking to you now: you know exactly who I am, and I know exactly who you are. There are witnesses to the fact that we are alive. And even if we talk about different things, we can reach a consensus.”
The Kremlin did not issue an outright denial that Putin was dead, but only said that Zelensky on a “psychological level,” would “prefer that neither Russia nor Putin exist.
“But the sooner the Ukrainian regime realizes…that Russia and Putin exist and will [continue to] exist, that sooner or later [Ukraine] will still have to give up everything anti-Russian, the better for a country like Ukraine,” Russian press secretary Dmitry Peskov said.
Speculation that Putin is gravely ill has been rife for months after several cancellations of appearance