After Ukraine claimed the first advances in its counteroffensive, Russian President Vladimir Putin maintained the opposite on Tuesday: that Kyiv’s efforts are futile. “They are taking heavy losses,” he said in a meeting with Russian war correspondents, “approaching catastrophic,” he stressed.
In the second time he has spoken publicly about the Ukrainian counteroffensive, the Kremlin chief admitted that the Russian army has lost 54 tanks since the start of the Ukrainian advances. But he asserted that the Ukrainian losses are ten times higher.
According to him, the Ukrainian army lost at least 160 tanks and 360 armored vehicles. At the same time, the equipment destroyed by Russia represents 25-30% of the total volume of combat vehicles transferred by the West to Kyiv.
Shortly before, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported the capture in the Zaporizhia region of several German Leopard tanks and several American Bradley armored vehicles. And he published a video in which several Russian soldiers are seen checking the combat machines supplied by Western countries.
Hours earlier, in his late-night speech from Kyiv, the Ukrainian president, Volodímir Zelenski, had assured that his army’s counteroffensive is “difficult” but “advances.” His government had announced that his troops had seized control of at least seven towns from Russian forces.
Putin assured Russian journalists that the losses of Ukrainian troops are higher than he himself had just exposed, because “there are losses that we do not see, which are inflicted by long-range high-precision weapons on groups of personnel and equipment.” .
The Ukrainians are attacking from four directions, but “in none of the places has the enemy succeeded. Their “losses are approaching a level that can be described as catastrophic,” he told a meeting that was broadcast on Russian public television.
Moscow seems to be responding to the Ukrainian attacks on various fronts by firing missiles at cities, or at least this is indicated by the bombing yesterday of the city of Krivói Rog, in the south-central part of the country and Zelensky’s homeland.
At least eleven dead and 28 wounded were Russian cruise missiles (only three were destroyed by anti-aircraft defense), which hit a five-story building, a warehouse, a company and a rescue unit, according to the Ukrainian authorities. The Russian version of what happened only mentioned “a warehouse of foreign-made ammunition and weapons” as the only objective.
Russia must be strengthened, Putin admitted, in the face of attacks on its territory from Ukraine, including recent incursions by paramilitary groups loyal to Kyiv in the Belgorod region. “The border needs to be reinforced. It has become clear that several things are missing: high-precision ammunition, communication equipment, drones, ”he listed. If the attacks continue, he added, Russia will have to study the creation of what he called a “sanitary zone” on the territory of the neighboring country “so that it is impossible for it to reach our territory.” As for the large Russian cities, such as the capital, Moscow, as far as the Ukrainian drones have reached, Putin was convinced that they are well defended.
The Russian leader ruled out a new military mobilization similar to the one in autumn (300,000 reservists), but acknowledged that the Russians called up to the ranks will have to be replaced. Although some public figure has asked to mobilize “a million or two million more”, Putin believes that Russia currently has enough volunteers, such as the 156,000 men who have signed contracts with the army this year 2023.
