The Russian President made a comment about the ongoing war in Ukraine during his four-hour-long combined year-end news conference and telephone call-in that took place on December 14.
While Russian troops continue to face Ukrainians’ resistance and die on the frontline, Vladimir Putin signalled that, to consider the war a success, those same goals he had set in February 2022 need to be met.
Moscow’s targets in Ukraine, he claimed, are “the de-Nazification, de-militarisation and a neutral status” of the eastern European nation.
Domestically, the Kremlin has framed the full-scale invasion of Ukraine as a “special military operation” aiming at protecting the Russian borders from the Ukrainian government which, the Russian leadership claims, is influenced by nationalists and neo-Nazi groups.
This claim has been slapped down by both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky – who was born to Jewish parents – and the West.
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During the news conference, which featured also foreign reporters as well as questions from members of the public, Putin said: “There will be peace when we achieve our goals.”
During the event, the first to take place since Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine last year, Putin faced a number of uncomfortable questions, including one about missile strikes suffered on his country’s soil.
Speaking from Moscow’s Gostinyy Dvor centre, Putin looked uneasy when asked whether the Kremlin was doing enough to support regions bordering with Ukraine which has been shelled for months on end.
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The Russian leader side-stepped the question, replying instead to a follow-up enquiry on the economic assistance for people in Belgorod and Kursk among other areas.
Putin’s sit-down came on the same day the Ukrainian General Staff claimed in its daily report about the losses experienced by Russian troops in Ukraine that the Kremlin had lost more than 1,300 soldiers and a dozen artillery systems in just 24 hours.
Along the 1000-kilometre-long frontline, Russian troops are engaging in a number of clashes with Ukrainians. Since October 10, they have been trying to take over the eastern city of Avdiivka, in the partially occupied Donetsk region.
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While it is difficult to assess the true number of losses experienced by Russia as the Kremlin doesn’t share any information about it, the Joe Biden administration claimed earlier this week that around 13,000 Russians have been killed or wounded in two months of attacks in Avdiivka.
Despite the Russian forces being drained of men, Putin claimed during his media event there is no need for a second wave of mobilisation of reservists, as he claimed some 617,000 Russian soldiers currently in Ukraine.
Some 1,500 men, he also alleged, are being recruited into the Russian army every day across the country.
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