Putin, top Russian brass visit southern military headquarters to assess Ukraine war
Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the Southern Military District headquarters in Rostov-on-Don as he assessed the state of his country’s forces in Ukraine as the war there drags on toward winter. It was Putin’s second public visit to the headquarters in less than a month.
Video shared by a Russian state news agency showed Putin being greeted late Thursday by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff, shortly after arriving at the military hub, which is less than 60 miles from Ukraine’s southeastern border.
Almost 21 months of war have significantly eroded both Russia’s and Ukraine’s military resources. As winter comes, the fighting is likely to further settle into attrition warfare, and analysts expect little change to the more than 600-mile front line.
Shortly after Putin’s visit to the military headquarters, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia was pressing ahead with its goals in Ukraine. “In the absence of conditions for a political-diplomatic settlement, we are continuing the special military operation,” Peskov said.
Commenting on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s promise of new gains by Kyiv’s forces, Peskov said: “President Zelensky has been frantically promising military successes to his donors, who are worried.”
Ukraine’s intelligence agency has claimed responsibility for a bombing that killed a Russia-backed official in the illegally annexed Luhansk region.
“They should realize that they won’t score a battlefield victory,” Peskov said. “The sooner they come to realize that, the earlier conditions for a settlement could emerge.”
At the southern military headquarters, Putin was “introduced to new types of military equipment” and was informed about the progress of the war, Peskov said, according to Russian state news agency Tass.
Putin was shown an all-terrain vehicle made by China — the Desertcross 1000-3 — according to video shared by the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti. The vehicle was painted the color of sand, and an information board nearby said it was designed for reconnaissance, raid and search-and-rescue operations, as well as for transporting materiel along bad roads.
Putin made the visit on the way back from a trip to Kazakhstan, where he aimed to cement ties with the fellow former Soviet republic and major economic partner in the midst of tensions with the West over Ukraine.
A criminal investigation has been launched into Ukrainian military officers who organized a ceremony that was struck by a Russian missile, killing 19 soldiers.
Around the time that Putin was visiting Rostov-on-Don, Russia launched a drone attack on Ukraine.
The Ukrainian air force said it intercepted five drones and one missile launched at the Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Poltava and Kyiv regions of Ukraine. Another drone and missile were not intercepted.
Zelensky’s office said two people have been killed in the south of the country in the last day after Russian shelling.
On Friday, Ukraine’s military intelligence said it had damaged a number of Russian Serna landing craft in occupied Crimea, which are designed to carry out assault landings and transport cargo.
In Russia, the Russian news outlet Baza and military blogger Semyon Pegov, who runs the popular WarGonzo channel, reported on Telegram that Russian Federal Security Service Lt. Col. Sergei Shatyi was killed by unidentified assailants who fired at his vehicle in the village of Ulitsa in the Bryansk region on the border with Ukraine.
The Russian military says a Ukrainian missile strike on a shipyard in annexed Crimea had damaged a Russian ship.
At the same time, the Russian Volunteer Corps, a group of Russian citizens who fight alongside Ukrainian forces, posted pictures on their Telegram channel of what they said was a successful ambush in the Bryansk region.
Neither of the reports could be verified by the Associated Press, and Russia’s FSB did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
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