RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin insisted today that Moscow’s troops were advancing across the battlefield in Ukraine and he was confident of achieving its goals militarily if a peace cannot be agreed.

Speaking at a news conference, President Putin said that Russian forces have “fully seized the strategic initiative” and would make more gains by the year’s end.

He said: “Our troops are advancing all across the line of contact, faster in some areas or slower in some others, but the enemy is retreating in all sectors,” but insisted that Moscow was ready for a peaceful settlement that would address the “root causes” of the conflict, which include the eastward expansion of the Nato military alliance.

The Russian leader praised US President Donald Trump’s attempts to end the war: “As he has said many times, he is doing this, in my opinion, with complete sincerity.”

Russia and the US came to verbal agreements at the August Alaska summit between the two leaders. “Therefore, it is absolutely incorrect and unfounded to say that we are rejecting something,” he said.

Mr Putin again accused the West of deceiving Russia with the 2014 Minsk agreements.

The Russian leader said: “We did not recognise the independence of the unrecognised republics — the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic — for a long time.

“After being deceived and the failure to implement the Minsk agreements, we were forced to use armed forces to end the war started by the Kiev regime with the support of Western countries.”

He said that Russia and the Soviet Union before it had been willing to go beyond co-operation with Nato to “direct membership — first of the Soviet Union, and then, the Russian Federation. But in both cases, we realised that we were not welcome.”

The Russian president said his country wants “a reliable security system established in Europe,” saying that his country was ready to end the conflict in Ukraine “provided that Russia’s security is guaranteed in the medium and long term.”

The speech came hours after European Union leaders agreed today to provide a massive interest-free loan of €90 billion to Ukraine to meet its military and economic needs for the next two years.

But the EU leaders stopped short of using frozen Russian assets to pay for the scheme, as championed by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.