Vladimir Putin says Ukrainian troops have started a long-expected counter-offensive and are suffering ‘significant’ losses.
Speaking during a conference in Sochi, the Russian president’s comments formed the latest effort to shape the narrative of the invasion he ordered more than 15 months ago, sparking widespread international condemnation and reviving Cold War-style tensions.
Mr Putin said Russian forces have the upper hand in the conflict, telling reporters in Sochi: ‘We can clearly say the offensive has started, as indicated by the Ukrainian army’s use of strategic reserves.
‘But the Ukrainian troops haven’t achieved their stated tasks in a single area of fighting.’
Meanwhile Ukrainian forces were reported to have breached the first line of defences in Zaporizhia and are making significant progress towards the occupied city of Tokmak, which serves as a major transport and logistic hub.
Kyiv has not specified whether reservists have been mobilised to the front, but western allies have poured firepower, defensive systems and other military assets and advice into Ukraine, raising the stakes for the counter-offensive.
Early reports of destroyed Leopard tanks supplied to Ukraine by the West have also been circulating on Russian social media, although they are yet to be independently verified.
‘We are seeing that the Ukrainian regime’s troops are suffering significant losses,’ Mr Putin said. ‘It’s known that the offensive side suffers losses of three to one – it’s sort of classic – but in this case, the losses significantly exceed that classic level.’
Ukraine has played down talk of a counter-offensive, reasoning that the less said about its military moves the better.
But on Friday, Ukrainian deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar said Russia was on the defensive in the south-eastern Zaporizhzhia province, though the epicentre of fighting remained in the east, particularly in the Donetsk region.
She described ‘heavy battles’ in Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Marinka.
Mayor of Melitopol Ivan Fedorov reports that indeed in Myrne, explosions were reported near a Russian military unit. Also in Tokmak, 6 explosions were noted by locals. pic.twitter.com/iO2pfoj27w
— NOELREPORTS ðªðº ðºð¦ (@NOELreports) June 7, 2023
Valerii Shershen, a spokesman for Ukraine’s armed forces in Zaporizhzhia, told Radio Liberty they were searching for weaknesses in Russia’s defences, which Moscow was trying to strengthen by deploying mines, constructing fortifications and regrouping.
The conflict entered a complex new phase this week with the rupture of a Dnieper River dam that sent floodwaters gushing through a large area of the front in southern Ukraine.
Tens of thousands of civilians already facing the misery of regular shelling fled for higher ground on both sides of the swollen and sprawling waterway.
Speaking after he visited flood zones on Thursday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was in touch with Ukrainian forces ‘in all the hottest areas’ and praised an unspecified ‘result’ from their efforts.
In Ukraine, the governor of the Kherson region, Oleksandr Prokudin, said on Friday that water levels had decreased by about 8in overnight on the western bank of the Dnieper, which was inundated from Tuesday after the breach of the Nova Kakhovka dam upstream.
Officials on both sides indicated that about 20 people have died in the flooding.
Kyiv accused Russia of blowing up the dam and its hydropower plant, which Russian forces controlled, while Moscow said Ukraine bombarded it.
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