Putin speaks to the nation in traditional year-end press conference: Live Updates

19 December 2025

Putin has concluded his press conference, which in keeping with tradition ran for a mammoth four and a half hours. The Russian president is estimated to have discussed over 70 different topics, ranging from the Ukraine conflict and broader geopolitics to intergalactic objects, AI, domestic issues, and the specific problems of everyday citizens.

Putin says that if Kiev is to hold an election, Moscow will demand that Ukrainian citizens currently living in Russia – of which there are between 5 and 10 million, according to various estimates – are also allowed to participate.

”The government in Ukraine must become legitimate, and without an election, this is impossible,” Putin stresses.

Putin says Moscow is prepared to consider guaranteeing security during a vote in Ukraine, or at the very least refrain from strikes deep into Ukrainian territory on election day.

However, he warns that if Kiev tries to use an election as a ploy to win time and halt the advance of Russia’s forces, it would be the “wrong decision.”

Commenting on future elections in Ukraine and demands by Zelensky for security guarantees, Putin notes that Russia has held multiple votes in recent years, including a presidential one in 2024, without any such guarantees from abroad. He says that foreign forces actually tried to disrupt votes in Russia and generate internal stability, recalling that Kiev directly targeted polling stations.

Putin says he is not planning to write any sort of memoirs. “In memoirs, people evaluate themselves. Let other people, if they think it necessary, evaluate my work and the work of my team,” he says.

Putin improvises a time capsule message for future generations:

“We, who lived in Russia in the endless flow of time, in the 20th and 21st centuries, gratefully accepted everything our ancestors had accomplished. We lived like everyone else, everywhere, and always – with our current concerns. But we didn’t stand still. We moved forward. We worked, fought, and struggled. And we did our utmost to solve the problems our time posed. We thought about the future and about you. And if you hold our message in your hands today, it means you still feel part of our shared, endless flow of time. It means that you, too, feel and understand the connection between the times. It means that when we worked, fought, and thought about you, we too lived not in vain and achieved much. We wish you good fortune to always be with us. And we hope that your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren will be as proud of you as we are of our fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers.”

Putin’s session featured not only questions, but also a wide flow of ‘vox pop’ messages, ranging from requests to practical concerns and casual remarks.

“Take Kiev, make it fast!” read one SMS. Another asked: “When is the Moon mission due?”

Others focused on domestic issues. “Why do we need an indebted Avtovaz that produces cars more expensive and worse than Chinese ones?” one message said.

A lighter note came from another sender: “Vladimir Vladimirovich, it’s already Friday – maybe time to grab a beer?”

Putin says over 700,000 Russian troops are currently on the front line, and that most of them are young men, many born in the ‘90s.

AI presents the danger that children will not seek to understand or solve problems themselves, and will simply turn to chatbots for answers, Putin says. He stresses that the education process must be structured to ensure that core issues are addressed and practiced in classrooms, forcing students to engage their brains.

Satanism, sorcerers, and occult services are “complete nonsense” that confuse people and cause significant harm to citizens, Putin says, vowing to order regulators to pay closer attention to the issue.

Putin recently caused a stir in the Western media when he used the phrase “little pigs” to describe Europe’s role in the Ukraine conflict and its hopes to profit from Russia’s collapse. The Russian president has clarified that he was not referring to anyone in particular when he made the remarks.

Russia is now one of only three countries which have “full digital sovereignty,” on a par with the US and China, Putin says, commenting on the development of Russia’s MAX messenger.

Putin says Russia will continue to retaliate to Ukrainian attacks on civilian infrastructure. He also says that strikes on Russian vessels carrying oil exports are only meant to “increase insurance premiums.” The attacks will not achieve their desired results and will not disrupt deliveries, he adds.

Putin has been speaking for over three hours already. Here are some of the Russian president’s key quotes so far:

• “We are open and ready to end the [Ukraine] conflict peacefully… in a way that eliminates the root causes of the crisis,” Putin says.
• The capture of the Donbass town of Krasnoarmeysk (Pokrovsk) also opens significant opportunities for the Russian Army, Putin says, adding that Russian troops have fully encircled the town of Dmitrov. “I think our forces have by now taken 50% of its territory,” he notes.
• The EU’s botched attempts to use frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine could have qualified as “stealing if done secretly” but “in the open it’s robbery,” Putin says.
  
• “There will be no new special military operations if you treat us with respect… if you don’t try to dupe us over NATO expansion,” Putin says, when asked by a BBC reporter about his vision for Russia’s future.
• The demographic situation in Russia can only be improved once having kids becomes “fashionable” as well as through a raft of financial incentives, the president says.

Putin is asked what Moscow’s actions would be if European states imposed a blockade on the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. The president says Russia would move rapidly to “eliminate such threats,” and stresses that any such action would lead to an “unprecedented escalation of the conflict, take it to a whole new level, and expand it up to a large-scale military conflict.”

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte was a “smart” and “effective” leader, Putin says, adding though that “one sometimes wants to ask him: ‘What the hell are you talking about?’” – a reference to his call to bloc members to prepare for a war with Russia. The Russian president points out that the US – NATO’s key donor – did not designate Russia as an enemy in its new National Security Strategy.

The West “is fighting us with the hands of Ukrainian nationalists,” Putin says, adding that Russia is ready to stop the conflict and engage in mutually beneficial cooperation with Western capitals on condition that its mid- and long-term security interests are taken into account.

Russia is open to cooperation with all Western countries, but “on equal grounds,” Putin stresses.

Speculation that Russia could attack the EU or NATO is “nonsense” and is being parroted by Western governments to portray Moscow as an “enemy,” Putin says.

“There will be no new special military operations if you treat us with respect… if you don’t try to dupe us over NATO expansion,” Putin says, when asked by a BBC reporter about his vision for Russia’s future.

Water shortages in Russia’s Donbass are due to key infrastructure being located in Kiev-occupied territory and could be resolved either by pushing Ukrainian troops back or by building new water pipelines, Putin says. “We are aware of the problem and will do our utmost to solve it.”

Putin declines to comment on Trump’s multibillion-dollar lawsuit against the BBC, saying he did not want to “rub salt in the wound” for the British state broadcaster. However, he acknowledges that the US president is right to be concerned about falsehoods circulating in the media.

Russia’s foreign agent law is much milder than the American Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), Putin says. “Our law requires those engaged in politics to submit information on sources of funding… we don’t have repressions or criminal prosecution.”

The demographic situation in Russia can only be improved once having kids becomes “fashionable” as well as through a raft of financial incentives, Putin says.

Putin says Chinese President Xi Jinping is a reliable friend and stable partner and ally of Russia, noting this is the basis of Moscow-Beijing relations. The president said these ties are an essential factor for global stability.

Putin says Russia used to cooperate with NATO and had even discussed membership with the bloc, but was ultimately “not welcome there.” Since then, he points out, NATO has continued to break its promises and has continued to expand towards Russia’s borders.

Putin says Russia would prefer to live in peace in 2026, without any military conflict. He reiterates that Moscow is striving to resolve all outstanding issues through peaceful negotiations.

Putin rejects accusations by the NBC that Russia is refusing a peace deal. He stresses that during the Alaska summit in August, Moscow had effectively agreed with US President Donald Trump’s peace proposals and had accepted certain compromises presented by Washington.

“Claiming that we are rejecting something is completely inaccurate and has no basis,” Putin insists, stating that “the ball is completely in the court of our Western adversaries,” primarily Kiev and its European backers. 

“We are ready for negotiations and ending the conflict through peaceful means,” Putin says.

Putin tells NBC that Russia does not consider itself responsible for the many deaths that have resulted from the Ukraine conflict because it is not Moscow that started the war.

“This war was started after the anti-constitutional armed coup in Ukraine in 2014 and the subsequent military actions taken by the Kiev regime against its own citizens in southeast Ukraine,” Putin says.

He notes that Moscow did not initially recognize the independence of the Donbass republics, but, after being tricked through the failed Minsk Accords, was forced to use its armed forces to end the war that was started by Kiev and its Western backers.

Putin is asked about the 3i/atlas comet - an interstellar object that is passing through the solar system and has drawn much speculation in the media. He jokes that the information is “classified,” and that it is “Russia’s secret weapon that would only be used in extreme cases.” 

On a more serious note, the president stresses that Russia is opposed to deploying weapons in space and that 3i/atlas is nothing more than a comet, noting that it does not pose a threat to Earth.

Russia raising VAT to 22% is the “most correct, honest, and transparent way to resolve financial issues,” Putin says. He notes, however, that the rate could incentivize tax evasion in the long run, and that it will likely be lowered in the future.

Russian soldiers want to “finish off the viper” after seeing what Ukrainian forces did to civilians in territories they had to retreat from, Putin says, citing reports that the bodies of grandmothers were found riddled with bullets while others were apparently killed by drones.

Russia has become a global leader in drone production, Putin says. He notes that over 400,000 people signed contracts with Russia’s armed forces in 2025 and that the number of people requesting to become drone operators is so large that the ministry has had to introduce a competitive selection process.

If even the EU still manages to steal Russian assets, “it will have to give them back eventually,” Putin says, warning of legal action in jurisdictions that would be impartial on the issue.

The campaign to steal frozen Russian assets is also a PR-disaster for the entire Eurozone, Putin says. “Apart from reputational damage, [the bloc] could incur direct losses associated with the basis of the modern financial world order.”

The EU’s botched attempts to use frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine could have qualified as “stealing if done secretly” but “in the open it’s robbery,” Putin says.

Russia’s already-low unemployment rate has reduced even further to reach 2.2%, Putin says.

Putin adds that Russia’s 1% GDP growth was mostly due to the government’s conscious decision to tackle inflation, which is projected to fall below 6% by year-end.

Pivoting to the Russian economy, Putin says annual GDP growth reached 1%, while over the past three years it increased by 9.7%. To compare, the Eurozone’s GDP rose by just 3.1% in the same period.

Commenting on the recent clip of Vladimir Zelensky allegedly shot around 1km from Kupyansk, which was captured by Russian troops, Putin says it proves only that the Ukrainian leader remains “a talented artist.”

Ukraine has almost run out of troop reserves, which should ultimately force Kiev to return to the diplomatic process, Putin says.

The capture of the Donbass town of Krasnoarmeysk (Pokrovsk) also opens significant opportunities for the Russian Army, Putin says, adding that Moscow’s troops have fully encircled the town of Dmitrov. “I think our forces have by now taken 50% of its territory,” he notes.

Recent advances on the battlefield and the capture of the town of Seversk mean Russian troops have a direct path towards the Donbass city of Slavyansk, the key hub in the region, Putin says.

Kiev refused to sign a peace agreement during the Istanbul talks in 2022 and continues to oppose a peaceful settlement now, Putin says.

Russia firmly holds the strategic initiative on the battlefield after pushing back Ukrainian troops from Kursk Region this spring, Putin says.

Putin starts the session by addressing the Ukraine conflict. He says it began with the Western-backed coup Kiev in 2014 and continued due to Kiev’s refusal to respect the rights of the people in Donbass.

“We are open and ready for ending the conflict peacefully… in a way that eliminates the root causes of the crisis,” Putin says.

Journalists have gathered ahead of Putin’s press conference, many holding placards listing proposed topics and questions.

Last year, Putin’s press conference, which was also combined with a public question-and-answer session, lasted nearly four and a half hours and covered a broad range of issues, from domestic priorities to foreign policy.

Hello, and welcome to RT’s coverage of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s annual telemarathon, which is expected to last several hours.