Despite several major military setbacks, particularly in the fall in the Kharkiv region and then in Kherson, Vladimir Putin assured us on Wednesday that he had “no doubt” about a victory for Russia in its offensive in Ukraine, nearly eleven months after its trigger.
A victory, “it is guaranteed, I have no doubt about it”, declared the Russian president, during a trip to an arms factory in Saint Petersburg. According to him, what could help Russia, “is the unity of the Russian people, the courage and heroism of our soldiers (…) and, of course, the work of our military and industrial sector”.
The master of the Kremlin once again repeated that, in his view, Russia was facing a “neo-Nazi regime” and affirmed that it would continue to “help” the inhabitants of the Ukrainian separatist east. “We cannot fail to protect them”, he insisted, “Victory will be ours”.
Putin: ‘Everything is going according to plan’
Faced with these difficulties on the ground, Vladimir Putin ordered the mobilization of 300,000 reservists and a campaign to bomb Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
Last week, the Russian army and mercenaries from the Wagner Group announced that they had conquered the modest town of Soledar, in eastern Ukraine, located near that of Bakhmout, which the Russians have been trying to seize for months. .
VIDEO. “Bloody” fighting in Soledar
After the announcement of the capture of Soledar, “everything is going according to the plans of the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff. I hope that our fighters will still delight us more than once with their military results,” the Russian president said in an interview on state television, broadcast on Sunday.
Three days before, however, he had appointed General Valéri Guerassimov, Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces since 2012, at the head of military operations in Ukraine.