Russian President Vladimir Putin is losing ground in his war—and in public opinion.
Margus Tsahkna, the foreign minister of Estonia, said Putin is no longer in a “secure” position as the war he’s been waging in Ukraine enters its fifth year.
“What we see around Putin is more concerts,” Tsahkna told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour outside the United Nations building in New York on Wednesday. “Nobody around Putin, and we see very closely to the Kremlin from Estonia, is talking about victory anymore,” he said, calling it a “good sign.”
Estonia, a member of the European Union and one of six NATO countries bordering Russia, is one of Ukraine’s closest allies and most vocal supporters. Since the start of the conflict, the country has committed the equivalent of $1.2 billion in total aid to Ukraine.
Additionally, Tsahkna criticized Donald Trump, saying that Putin has been using the American president to “win more time and put more pressure on Ukraine,” in an interview with USA Today.
Though he said Trump was well-intentioned, he added: “We just need to support Ukraine with more pressure on Russia.”
Meanwhile, in Russia, Putin is facing a fuel crisis as Ukraine’s drone strikes on Russian oil refineries choke supplies.
Trump went so far as to implore Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to stop the blitzes on Moscow’s diesel-producing infrastructure because global energy supplies have already been strained by his own war in Iran, the Financial Times reported earlier this week.
The Ukrainian president, however, appears to have ignored Trump, as strikes have continued. So much so, in fact, that a growing number of regions in Russia have reintroduced fuel rationing measures amid shortages of gasoline and diesel, the Moscow Times reports. Gasoline shortages are just the latest in a string of crises facing the Kremlin, with basic food prices surging faster than inflation.
On Monday, Trump met with Zelensky at the United Nations in the latest of their discussions on ending the war. “We’re working very closely with the leaders of Russia and Ukraine, and we will get that one done,” Trump said, adding that an agreement would happen “more quickly than people understand.”
A day later, Russian forces launched a drone attack in Kyiv, damaging infrastructure and killing at least two people. Shortly after, the Trump administration announced that dictator-curious Trump had invited Putin to the December G20 summit in Miami.
“We think it’s an opportunity for him to engage not just with the president, but with other world leaders,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday, adding that he hopes Putin will accept.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has not responded to questions from the Daily Beast regarding Putin’s attendance.
