Putin says Ukraine not ready for peace, as Kyiv claims fist strike on “shadow fleet” tanker in Mediterranean

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that his country was “not seeing the willingness from Ukraine” to negotiate a peace deal, again blaming the country he ordered a full-scale invasion of nearly four years ago for the continuation of a war he’s refused even to acknowledge is a war.

Putin said he was open to a negotiated end to what he calls a “special military operation,” but only on his terms, insisting, as he has for years, that Ukraine must accept a massive, formal forfeiture of occupied territory and some degree of national demilitarization — both terms that Kyiv has rejected.

The Russian president said his forces had “fully seized strategic initiative” in the conflict and would take even more ground along the roughly 600-mile front line in eastern Ukraine before the end of the year.

“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,” Putin said during the live, wide-ranging end-of-year news conference that has been a hallmark of his tenure.

His remarks came as Ukraine claimed a dramatic new blow against Russia, but also as divisions among European nations over how to keep supporting Kyiv — fueled, many believe, by Moscow’s pressure tactics — were laid bare.

Putin’s latest casting of blame for the war at both Kyiv and its backers in Europe also came as a senior Russian envoy prepared to meet again for talks with Trump administration officials in Florida this weekend. The White House is pushing hard for a negotiated resolution to the conflict that President Trump had vowed to end quickly when he took office.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday called proposals being negotiated with the U.S. “very workable,” suggesting they could be finalized in a matter of days, allowing American officials to discuss with their Russian counterparts.

Ukraine claims drone strike on Russian “shadow fleet” tanker in Mediterranean

Ukraine has been defending itself with the support of the U.S. and its European partners, and as Putin spoke in Moscow, Kyiv claimed a significant expansion of its wartime resistance, with a first purported attack on an oil tanker said to be part of Russia’s sanctions-violating “shadow fleet” in the Mediterranean.

In a statement, Ukraine’s SBU intelligence agency said Friday that it had “struck a tanker belonging to Russia’s ‘shadow fleet’ in neutral waters in the Mediterranean Sea for the first time,” touting it as an “unprecedented special operation more than 2,000 km [1,200 miles] from the territory of our state.”

The SBU said it used aerial drones to disable the Oman-flagged oil tanker Qendil, which it said was empty at the time, and thus “did not pose any threat to the ecological situation in the region.”

The SBU shared a black-and-white video, seemingly captured by a drone, of the purported strike that shows several explosions on the deck of a tanker.

“Russia used this tanker to circumvent sanctions and earn money that went to the war against Ukraine,” a source in the SBU told CBS News. “Therefore, from the point of view of international law and the laws and customs of war, this is an absolutely legitimate target for the SBU. The enemy must understand that Ukraine will not stop and will strike it anywhere in the world, wherever it may be.”

Ukraine has long targeted fuel tankers and infrastructure in Russian ports and on land as part of its efforts to undermine Moscow’s war funding, but only this month has Kyiv acknowledged attacking vessels outside Russia’s territorial waters. CBS News reported on the first such strikes, targeting tankers off the coasts of Turkey and West Africa, just over a week ago. 

The SBU said the new strike had disabled the Qendil, which ship tracking website MarineTraffic.com confirmed was located in the eastern Mediterranean as of Friday afternoon. According to MarineTraffic, the vessel — which has not been listed by the U.S. Treasury among the Russian shadow fleet ships subjected to sanctions — was sailing from the Indian port of Sikka to the Russian port of Ust-Luga.

The U.S. government has sanctioned many vessels and maritime companies in an effort to crack down on Russia’s shadow fleet, ships with often murky registration and ownership that Moscow allegedly uses to evade heavy Western sanctions on its energy products, providing vital revenue for its war effort.

The Trump administration accuses several major oil producers, including Russia, Venezuela, and Iran, of using a global fleet of such ships, and just last week, U.S. military forces seized a sanctioned 20-year-old oil tanker after it left a port in Venezuela, sources told CBS News.

Armed personnel approached in helicopters and boarded the vessel, which was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury three years ago for its alleged role in an oil smuggling network that helped fund the Iranian military and its proxies in the Middle East. 

Asked Friday about the strike on the Qendil during his news conference, Putin was dismissive, but vowed to respond. 

“They’re pursuing some utilitarian purposes,” the Russian leader said, without confirming any specifics. “They want to raise insurance premiums, but this will not bring about the result they desire. This is not going to disrupt the supplies. This would only create additional threats, and Russia is certainly going to respond.”

Despite divisions, EU agrees on financial lifeline for Ukraine

The European Union, meanwhile, stepped up overnight to offer a support package for Ukraine worth more than $100 billion — but the bloc could not agree on proposals pushed by leaders to use frozen Russian assets to do it.

After failing to agree on specifics, the EU ended up taking out an interest-free loan for Ukraine, against its own budget, intended to fund the country’s military and economic needs for two years.

EU leaders wanted to finance the aid package with the frozen Russian assets, but there was always resistance to that idea among some members — most notably Belgium, where much of the ringfenced Russian money is held.

Putin renewed threats in his remarks on Friday that there would be severe consequences for European nations that chose to use the Russian money, held as part of the sanctions against Moscow.

He said any such move would have been “daylight robbery.”

“Why can’t this robbery be carried out? Because the consequences could be grave for the robbers,” he said Friday.

Russia has been accused repeatedly in recent months of waging a hybrid war against Ukraine’s European partners, with a series of unclaimed drone incursions, including around airports and military bases, Russian warplanes violating European — and NATO — airspace, and other acts of alleged sabotage targeting vital infrastructure.

“If Europe had walked away today without an agreement, we would not only have failed Ukraine, we would have failed ourselves,” Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever said Friday, putting a positive spin on the agreement that was reached.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz also hailed the agreement for a “zero-interest loan” for Ukraine, and leaving room for the Russian assets to be leveraged in the future.

“These funds are sufficient to cover the military and budgetary needs of Ukraine for the two years to come,” Merz said, noting that the frozen Russian assets will remain blocked unless and until Russia pays reparations to Ukraine for the huge damage inflicted during the war.

“If Russia does not pay reparations, we will — in full accordance with international law — make use of Russian immobilized assets for paying back the loan,” the German leader said.

Ukraine’s government welcomed the deal, but made it clear that Kyiv still feels Russia’s frozen assets should be accessed in support of its defense.

“Indeed, there are moments when one should keep in mind that ‘Perfect is the enemy of good,'” Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergiy Kyslytsya said. “It was a long night for European leaders, but they were able to come up with a workable result.”