Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged Sunday that the Ukrainian army’s counteroffensive in opposition to Russia “exists,” however claimed that the operation has “failed.”
Mr. Putin made the feedback in a gathering with shut ally Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in St. Petersburg at a second of heated debate within the West over the standing of Kyiv’s push to drive Russian forces out of jap Ukraine.
While some Western analysts say the extensively anticipated counteroffensive to this point has been a slog with little discernible progress, U.S. army officers have defended the operation in latest days.
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley conceded that the Ukrainian army’s advance throughout latest weeks hasn’t stored tempo with theoretical war-game workout routines carried out forward of time, however confused that the counteroffensive is “far from a failure.”
“It’s way too early to make that kind of call,” Gen. Milley instructed reporters on Tuesday. “There’s a lot of fighting left to go.”
Over the previous six weeks, the Ukrainian counteroffensive has made some incremental beneficial properties. An evaluation by the Institute for the Study of War stated Ukraine has picked up some floor in Andriivka, southwest of Bakhmut, and northwest of Bakhmut in Orikhovo-Vasylivka, the place some Russian forces have been compelled to retreat.
But the advances have been sluggish. Most fronts within the counteroffensive have seen minor incremental beneficial properties at finest, with the complete operation shifting at a a lot slower charge than most analysts anticipated, particularly given the plain limitations of the Russian drive.
Mr. Putin weighed in on the state of affairs as he and Mr. Lukashenko met Sunday for the primary time because the Belarusian president helped finish a mutiny by Russia’s Wagner Group mercenaries, who had performed a key function within the occupation of jap Ukraine.
Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin publicly criticized Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in the course of the mutiny, which was extensively seen as essentially the most important risk to Mr. Putin’s greater than two-decade maintain on energy in Russia.
Mr. Lukashenko’s authorities in neighboring Belarus is now internet hosting 1000’s of Wagner mercenaries who’ve left Ukraine and whose standing and future stay unclear.
In an alternate firstly of the Putin-Lukashenko assembly Sunday, the Belarusian president declared that “there is no counteroffensive” in Ukraine.
According to a Reuters report on the assembly, Mr. Putin then interrupted Mr. Lukashenko, saying: “It exists, but it has failed.”
Mr. Lukashenko individually stated his authorities has management over the state of affairs with Wagner Group fighters now staged in Belarus, whose presence has induced rising unease in close by Poland, which has lately made strikes to strengthen its border with Belarus.
A report Sunday by Agence France-Presse famous that Mr. Putin and Mr. Lukashenko have accused Poland of getting territorial ambitions in Ukraine and Belarus, one thing Warsaw denies.
The information company reported that Mr. Lukashenko issued a veiled risk to Poland on Sunday, saying Wagner mercenaries are “asking to go West … to go on a trip to Warsaw.”
“But of course, I am keeping them in central Belarus,” Mr. Lukashenko stated.
• Ben Wolfgang contributed to this report.
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