Putin, in a defiant tone, assures that Russia does “everything right” in Ukraine to achieve victory

President Vladimir Putin assured this Friday that Russia is doing “all right” in Ukrainedespite the setbacks suffered by its troops in eight months of military operations in that country.

“It is not pleasant what is happening now,” Putin admitted at a news conference in Kazakhstan. But if Russia hadn’t invaded Ukraine, “we would have been in the same situation a little later, only worse conditions for us,” she added.

“So we’re doing everything right,” he said.

Russian troops failed in their attempt to take kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, after the invasion began on February 24, and in recent weeks have been forced to withdraw from various positions in the east and south, in the face of a surprising Ukrainian counteroffensive.

The advance of the Ukrainian forces has forced the authorities established by the Kremlin in the Kherson region, which Moscow annexed, to request the evacuation of civilians.

Russia also denounces a “considerable increase” in Ukrainian bombing in several Russian border regions.

This Friday, a Ukrainian bombardment caused a fire in an electrical substation in the Russian city of Belgorod, near the border, according to the regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.

Putin rules out new “massive” bombings

Russia earlier this week launched a massive bombing campaign against several Ukrainian cities, including kyiv, in retaliation for an explosion that damaged the bridge in Crimea, a peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.

The Russian government, which described the attack as a “terrorist action” perpetrated by the Ukrainian services, announced this Friday that it intends to restore the bridge before July 1, 2023.

The viaduct, built under the orders of the Russian president, is key to supplying Russian troops in Ukraine.

Putin, however, ruled out launching new “massive” bombardments “immediately” and pointed out that he does not foresee a new mobilization of reservists, after the one announced three weeks ago.

He explained that 222,000 troops, of which 300,000 expected, already recruitedand that 16,000 are already in “units involved in the fighting.”

together to victory

The Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelenski, promised his citizens victory, in an act of celebration of Defender’s Day.

“On October 14 we thank … all those who fought for Ukraine in the past and all those who fight for it now, those who won in the past and those who will certainly win now,” Zelensky said in a video. .

“Together to victory!” Launched the head of the Ukrainian army, Valery Zalujny.

On the occasion of this holiday, portraits of some 180 soldiers killed in Mariupol, a port city besieged for months by the Russian army before falling in May, were erected in front of Saint Sophia Cathedral in kyiv.

Galyna Golitsyna lost both of her sons in the war. The oldest in 2014 and Denys on March 23. The 61-year-old woman places her hand, then her forehead, on the portrait of her youngest son, who died at the age of 32.

“Losing a child is the most terrible thing that can happen to you. And I lost my two children in this same war. It’s Memorial Day for me,” he told AFP, wiping away tears.

opportunity to leave

Despite the Ukrainian counter-offensive, Russian and separatist forces are making offensive moves in a sector of eastern Ukraine and claim they are in a good position to capture the city of Bakhmut.

Controlling that town would allow Moscow to advance on two other kyiv-controlled cities in the Donetsk region, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.

According to Andrei Marochko, a representative of separatist forces from the neighboring Lugansk region, but who are fighting in the area, “there is ongoing fighting” and Ukrainian troops are being pushed “to the northwest and west of the city.”

The UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Pramila Patten, told AFP that the rapes and sexual assaults attributed to Russian forces in Ukraine were a “military strategy” and a “deliberate tactic to dehumanize to the victims”.

“When we hear the testimonies of women talking about Russian soldiers equipped with Viagra, it is clearly a military strategy,” he explained.