Putin to meet mothers of soldiers fighting in Ukraine

President Vladimir Putin will meet the mothers of soldiers fighting in Ukraine on Friday, the Kremlin said, as Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War Two enters its 10th month.

The war in Ukraine has killed and wounded tens of thousands of troops on both sides, according to the United States, and the Russian invasion has triggered the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

Hundreds of thousands of Russian troops have been sent to fight in Ukraine – including some of the more than 300,000 reservists who were called up as part of a mobilization announced by Putin in September.

“On the eve of Mother’s Day, which is celebrated in Russia on the last Sunday of November, Vladimir Putin will meet with mothers of military personnel participating in the special military operation,” the Kremlin said in a statement.

The Kremlin said Putin would meet mothers of reservists called up to fight, as well as professional soldiers from the armed forces.

Putin said he had no regrets about launching what he calls Russia’s “special military operation” against Ukraine and called the war a watershed moment as Russia finally faced up to arrogant Western hegemony after decades of humiliation in the years since the fall of 1991 from the Soviet Union.

Ukraine and the West say Putin has no justification for what they call an imperial-style war of occupation. Ukraine says it will fight until the last Russian soldier is expelled from its territory.

Ukraine does not disclose its losses. The last time Russia publicly disclosed its losses was on September 21, when Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that 5,937 Russian soldiers had been killed. But that number is far below most international estimates.

The United States’ top general estimated on November 9 that Russia and Ukraine have each seen more than 100,000 of their troops killed or wounded.