Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to intensify his army's assault against Ukraine, accusing it of "terrorist attacks" and insisting that Moscow is protecting itself against a campaign by the West to "create an anti-Russia enclave," the Washington Examiner reported on Monday.
Speaking at a news conference in Uzbekistan, Putin rejected criticism of the Kremlin's conduct of the war and claimed that Russia has been "quite restrained in our response, but that will not last forever."
He then warned that "recently, Russian Armed Forces delivered a couple of sensitive blows to that area. Let's call them warning shots. If the situation continues like that, our response will be more impactful."
Putin also insisted, despite widespread reports that his army is being pushed back in the northern Kharkiv area and is withdrawing into better defensive positions in the southern Kherson province, that everything is going according to plan and that the war's aims will not be changed, the Washington Examiner reported.
"The main goal is to liberate the entire territory of Donbas," Putin said. "This work continues despite the attempts of the Ukrainian army to launch a counteroffensive. We are not stopping our offensive operations in Donbas itself. They continue. They continue at a slow pace but consistently and gradually, the Russian army is taking more and more new territory."
Putin did, however, seem to verify reports of a manpower shortage among his troops six months into the war, saying, "I must emphasize that we are fighting not with a full army but only with part, with contracted forces. Of course, this is linked with certain personnel parameters and so on."
The U.S. estimates that Russia has lost as many as 80,000 soldiers from the force that invaded Ukraine, including dead and wounded.
The British Defense Ministry estimates that Ukraine has shot down more than 50 combat aircraft since the start of the war and tweeted that "Russia's continued lack of air superiority remains one of the most important factors underpinning the fragility of its operational design in Ukraine."
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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