The Russian President does not intend to change strategy and reiterated that Russian military operations would continue despite the large-scale counter-offensives by the Ukrainian army.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Russia was in no hurry to complete its military campaign in Ukraine, assuring that the strategy of Russian forces had not changed and that they would continue to seize territories.
“Our offensive operations in Donbass do not stop, they are progressing slowly (…) the Russian army is occupying more and more new areas,” he said during a press conference from Samarkand in Uzbekistan.
“I emphasize that we are not fighting with our entire army. We are fighting only with the contracted part (professional, ed.)”, he added, while the Kremlin officially banned the sending of conscripts to the front and a general mobilization declined in the country.
“We will see how the Ukrainian counteroffensive ends”
“The plan (of the operations, editor’s note) does not need to be changed (…) we are in no hurry,” Vladimir Putin reassured.
He said operations would continue despite major counter-offensives by the Ukrainian army in the north-east and south of the country. “The authorities in Kyiv have announced that they have launched an active counter-offensive. Well, we’ll see how it will end,” Vladimir Putin simply commented.
According to him, the main goal of the Kremlin remains “the liberation of the entire Donbass region,” a mining basin in eastern Ukraine consisting of the Lugansk region, which is already under the control of the Russian army, and the Donetsk region, which includes part still eludes Moscow.