Vladimir Putin said again on Monday that the counter-offensive launched by the Ukrainian military in early June to recapture the territories occupied by Russia was a “failure”.
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“It’s not that he’s skating, it’s that he failed. In any case, this is exactly what he looks like today,” the Russian president said during a press conference in Sochi, southern Russia, alongside his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“We’ll see what happens next, but hopefully it stays that way,” he said.
Last June, the Ukrainian army launched a major counterattack in the south and east, with the aim of expelling Russia from the Ukrainian lands it occupies.
At this point, Kiev’s forces advanced slowly, in part because of the minefields, but Kiev claims to have breached the first Russian defense line in the south around the town of Robotynny, and hopes to be able to advance and cut Russian lines of communication. .
Russian defense lines consist of trenches, anti-tank traps and minefields stretching hundreds of kilometers.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told him on Monday that the Ukrainian army “for at least ten days” has been carrying out “violent attacks in large numbers and with great hopes”.
But to no avail, he said: “Today, everything is happening exactly as our president said.”
