Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russian forces had reinforced positions across the front line in Ukraine, after he called Ukraine’s counteroffensive this year a failure.
Putin’s decision in 2022 to send tens of thousands of troops to Ukraine started a war that left regions of Ukraine devastated and thousands of people dead or injured.
Russia currently controls around 17.5% of Ukraine’s territory. The four-month-old Ukrainian counteroffensive has made almost no net territorial gains, according to Western analyzes of Russian-occupied territory.
While Ukraine has regained territory seized by Russia last year, the Ukrainian army has struggled to penetrate Russian lines, which have been reinforced with minefields and thousands of additional troops.
“Regarding the counteroffensive, which is supposedly stalled, it has completely failed,” Putin said in video comments posted on social media by a Kremlin journalist, Pavel Zarubin.
“The opposing side is preparing new offensive operations. We saw it and we know it,” Putin said when asked about the battle for the city of Avdiivka, in eastern Ukraine.
Both Russia and the United States have described the rise of fighting around Avdiivka as a new Russian offensive.
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“What is happening now over the entire expanse of [linha de] contact is called ‘active defense’,” Putin said. “And our troops are improving positions in almost the entire area. Quite a large region.”
According to Harvard’s Belfer Center, Ukraine gained a net gain of nearly 21 square kilometers of territory in the month ending October 10.
The conflict in eastern Ukraine began in 2014, after a pro-Russian president was ousted in Ukraine’s Maidan, or Euromaidan, Revolution and Russia annexed Crimea.
Source: CNN Brasil
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