SCHEMING Vladimir Putin yesterday said Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky must quit to speed up peace.

The tyrant also insisted Russia has the “strategic initiative” all along the front line.

And he warned: “Not long ago I said we’d grind them down.

“Now it looks like we’ll finish them off.”

Putin used a visit to launch a nuclear submarine to suggest the UN take control in Kyiv to elect a more “competent” government.

He claimed Zelensky, who has stayed in power beyond the end of his term, lacks legitimacy to sign any peace agreement.

But Ukraine’s constitution forbids elections while it is under martial law — and Zelensky still has the backing of his people.

A valid election would also be impossible when five million Ukrainians are overseas, and hundreds of thousands more are fighting in the four-year war.

Ukraine accused Putin of “crazy” ideas aimed at delaying a peace deal being brokered by US President Donald Trump.

Zelensky’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak said Putin’s comments proved Russia was not serious about peace.

The White House insisted Ukraine’s governance would be decided by its constitution and people.

Putin spoke in the north-western Russian city of Murmansk, near the Finnish border, for the launch of submarine Perm — the first equipped with ­Zircon hypersonic missiles.

He also met sister vessel Arkhangelsk’s commander.

On Thursday 163 strike and decoy drones were fired at Ukraine, with 89 downed and 51 more jammed.

So far, the two sides have agreed a limited truce in the Black Sea.

But Russia later blocked the plan and issued new demands including the lifting of sanctions.

Putin has said Russia will not accept any Nato-member troops as part of a peacekeeping force in Ukraine.

He also appeared to mock the size of our armed forces, adding: “Britain is jumping on us, behaving aggressively . . . but their economy is, I think, in the ninth or tenth place in the world.

“Hence the armed forces — what is it, 170,000 or 180,000? That’s all the armed forces of the UK!”

Russia is the world’s fifth largest military force with an estimated 1.5 million service personnel.

But it has had to rely on conscripts from prisons, mercenaries and North Korean troops.