On National Unity Day, Russian President Vladimir Putin used the occasion to once again justify the war against Ukraine and make accusations against the West, while Kiev said it sees no willingness on Russia’s part to negotiate an end to the conflict.

“The so-called friends of Ukraine have pushed the situation to a point where it became dangerous for Russia and suicidal for the Ukrainian people,” Putin said in Moscow on Friday, according to Russian news agency reports.

Putin said the Western policy was aimed at “weakening, dividing, destroying Russia.”

“We will never allow this. We will protect our homeland as our forefathers did,” the Russian leader said during a speech to historians and religious representatives.

Once again he labelled the Ukrainian leadership “neo-Nazi” and said a regime clash between the two countries was inevitable.

Putin ordered his troops to invade the neighboring country on February 24 of this year.

In the last eight months, Russia has inflicted severe devastation in Ukraine and declared the occupied southern and eastern parts of the country Russian territory.

Ukraine is fighting back aided by foreign support, with its army making significant gains in recent weeks.

At the same time, Putin signed two legislative amendments on Friday to raise the morale of his weakened troops in Ukraine.

The regulations created legal backing for volunteer battalions to be formed, as well as stating that convicted criminals can be drafted into the army despite their convictions.

November 4 is celebrated as National Unity Day in Russia. It commemorates the expulsion of Polish troops from Moscow in 1612.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meanwhile sees no willingness on the part of Moscow to negotiate an end to the war against his country.

Russia is sending tens or hundreds of thousands of people to fight; but those who want to negotiate will not let people die in the “meat grinder,” Zelensky said in his daily video message broadcast in Kiev on Friday evening.

“We are now ready for peace, a fair and just peace. We have declared the formula for it many times,” Zelensky said, adding that, above all, Russia must respect Ukraine‘s borders and its territorial integrity under UN law.

The Ukrainian head of state accused Russia of misleading everyone with the negotiations on an end to the conflict recently offered also to foreign interlocutors. It is true, he said, that Moscow had declared an end to the partial mobilization of army reservists. “But in reality, Russia continues to collect people in its regions and on our territories that are occupied in order to let them die.”

Zelensky had repeatedly demanded a complete withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukrainian territory as a precondition for peace talks. In addition, he now said that Russia must take responsibility for the terror campaign against Ukraine. Moscow must punish war criminals and compensate for the damages, he demanded.

Meanwhile, on the ground in Ukraine, the heaviest fighting is currently concentrated in the Donbass around the towns of Bakhmut and Soledar in the Donetsk region, according to Zelensky.

“We are holding the positions,” he said, in light of Russia’s mobilization of more than 300,000 reservists for its invasion of Ukraine, adding that Moscow already lost thousands of soldiers in the area.

There was confusion late Friday surrounding an apparent curfew in Russian-occupied Kherson in southern Ukraine.

The curfew applies around the clock for “Nazis and helpers of fascism,” the deputy head of the pro-Russian administration in the region, Kirill Stremousov, said on Friday evening in a video message on his Telegram channel.

The Russian state news agency TASS had previously reported on a video message from Stremousov, according to which the curfew applied to all residents. He then apparently deleted the video.

Putin said in Moscow that the evacuation of Kherson was necessary so that people would not be endangered by hostilities.

“Of course, those living in Kherson should now move out of the zone of dangerous actions,” Putin said at a meeting with volunteers helping refugees from Ukraine.

According to the Russian occupiers, who want to prevent the city from being recaptured by Ukrainian troops, the danger is growing in the contested region.

On October 18, the occupiers called for the city to be evacuated in the face of massive shelling from the Ukrainian side. According to official figures, 80,000 people have already left the Kherson region. Ukraine charges that Russia “abducted” local people.

In the contested parts of the region, 170,000 people are said to be holding out who have not wanted or been able to flee so far.

According to unverifiable information from the Russian Defence Ministry, around 5,000 people are brought to safety every day across the Dnipro river in boats and over a pontoon bridge.