Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Ukraine’s counter-offensive operation had failed and cost the country’s army tens of thousands of soldiers.
“Nothing can help them, not even the huge supply of Western weapons such as tanks, artillery systems, armored vehicles, missiles or the deployment of thousands of mercenaries, foreign advisers, forces trying to break through our defenses,” President Putin said at a meeting with Russia’s National Security Council on July 21.
The Kremlin owner said that Ukraine had lost “tens of thousands of soldiers” in a failed counter-offensive, which he called a “suicide attack” on Russian defensive positions. Putin also said that Ukraine is running out of manpower.
He warned that the West could continue to provide arms to Ukraine to inflict further damage on Russia and prolong the conflict, but “stockpile of both old Soviet weapons and modern weapons in some NATO countries are running out.
According to him, Western military production cannot meet the needs of the conflict in Ukraine. He also said that Western military equipment has proven to be inferior in some respects even to Soviet-era weapons.
Last week, Putin also called Ukraine’s counter-offensive “failed” after it was “impossible to penetrate Russia’s defenses anywhere along the front lines”.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, by last week, Ukraine had lost more than 26,000 soldiers and hundreds of armored vehicles, including many tanks supplied by the West.
Ukraine has not commented on this information but has repeatedly confirmed that its losses are much lower than that of the Russian side.
Ukraine began a large-scale counter-offensive operation on both the Eastern and Southern fronts at the beginning of June after months of preparation. The country’s officials admitted that the speed of the counter-attack was slower than expected due to the strong defenses of Russia, including minefields and a dense network of fortifications. Kyiv also said it had not launched all of its brigades to counterattack.
Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to the President of Ukraine, said on July 14 that Western allies “did not put pressure” on Ukraine to move faster in the counter-offensive campaign. “There’s no pressure, it’s just a question of what more we can do for you,” Yermak said.
Yermak stated that Ukraine will not negotiate with Russia until Russia withdraws its troops and restores Ukraine’s territorial integrity along the internationally recognized borders in 1991.
On the US side, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley said on July 18: “Ukraine’s counter-offensive operation is still in the early stages, and it is still too early to make any definitive assessment. In my opinion, the fighting will be prolonged, difficult, and bloody.”
