Vladimir Putin acknowledges a “long” conflict
Vladimir Putin on Wednesday conceded that the conflict in Ukraine is “long” while boasting of “significant results” in relation to what he claims have been the annexation of four Ukrainian regions. “Of course it’s a long process,” the Russian president said during a televised meeting with his Civil Society and Human Rights Council, a pro-Kremlin assembly.
The offensive launched in February was supposed to end in a lightning Russian victory, but the Ukrainian army, bolstered by Western weapons, forced Russia to abandon the capture of Kyiv in the spring and retreat in several other regions in the fall. Vladimir Putin replied to one of his interlocutors on Wednesday that the annexation of new territories was a “significant result for Russia”.
“The Sea of Azov has become an inland sea, it’s a serious matter,” he announced, referring to this sea bordering Russia and south-eastern Ukraine, whose shores Moscow now controls. President Putin also alluded to the four Ukrainian regions he claimed were annexed at the end of September, despite Russia only partially controlling them and fighting there with forces from Kiev. This month, the Russian army even had to withdraw from Kherson, the capital of the region of the same name, which Moscow nevertheless considers its own.
The Kremlin has always denied that its offensive against Ukraine is aimed at seizing new territories, claiming that it wants to defend the Russian-speaking population and end the alliance between Kyiv and the West.
A few minutes earlier, during the same meeting via video conference, Mr. Putin came back to the mobilization of 300,000 reservists, civilians, noting that only half were immediately deployed to Ukraine. “Of 300,000 of our mobilized fighters, our men, our defenders of the Fatherland, 150,000 are in the theater of operations,” the Russian leader said, adding that 77,000 will be deployed directly in combat.