RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE
Ukraine having ‘no success’ with counteroffensive – Putin
The much-touted Ukrainian counteroffensive has seen no success more than a month after it was launched, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview aired on Sunday. Putin praised Russia’s “heroic” troops and insisted that the direction of Moscow’s military campaign was “positive.”
“All attempts by the enemy to breach our defenses… including through the use of strategic reserves have fallen flat throughout the counteroffensive. Our enemy remains unsuccessful,” the Russian leader told journalist Pavel Zarubin.
According to Putin, Russian troops are launching counterattacks of their own in some sections of the front line and are “taking the most advantageous positions.” The Russian Defense Ministry previously reported that Ukraine has suffered heavy losses and has failed to reach even Russia’s first line of defense on most fronts. The Defense Ministry has also published numerous videos showing damaged or destroyed Ukrainian heavy military equipment, including Western-made tanks and infantry fighting vehicles.
According to the ministry, the Ukrainian military has lost 26,000 men advancing through minefields and without air support during its counteroffensive. The Western media has also acknowledged heavy losses among Ukrainian troops, with Forbes describing them as “disastrous” in late June. The New York Times reported this week that the Ukrainian military lost 20% of the equipment it sent into battle during the first two weeks of the operation.
According to Putin, Russian forces have destroyed 311 Ukrainian tanks since June 4. “At least a third of them, I believe, were Western-made tanks, including Leopards,” Putin told the Russia 24 TV channel on Thursday.
The slow pace of the counteroffensive has led to friction between Kiev and its Western backers. In June, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky blamed the lack of progress on the West’s hesitancy to send more weapons to Kiev.
US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley warned in early July that there should be no illusions about the operation, and that it would be “difficult” and “very, very bloody.”
** Russia reserves the right to use cluster munitions as tit-for-tat response – Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that Russia reserves the right to use cluster munitions in response to Ukraine's use of these weapons.
"Russia has a sufficient reserve of various kinds of cluster munitions, various kinds. So far we have not done it, we have not used them, and we have not had such a need, despite a certain shortage in munitions at a certain point of time. But we didn’t do this," the president said in an interview with the "Moscow. Kremlin. Putin" program on Rossiya-1 TV channel, a fragment of which was posted on its host Pavel Zarubin’s Telegram channel.
"But of course, if they (cluster munitions) are used against us, we reserve the right to tit-for-tat actions," the president said.
Putin expressed confidence that that the supplies of cluster munitions to Ukraine and their use should be treated as a crime. "As for cluster munitions, the US administration itself through its staff gave its opinion on these munitions a while ago, when the use of cluster munitions was called a crime by the US administration itself. So, I think, this is how it should be treated," the president went on to say.
Putin believes that the US is supplying cluster munitions to Ukraine due to a general shortage of shells. "They (the US) are doing this (supplying cluster munitions to Ukraine - TASS) not out of the goodness of their heart, but because they have a shortage of munitions in general," the president said.
He reiterated that "the Ukrainian army spends up to 5,000-6,000 155mm caliber shells per day of fighting, while the US produces 15,000 a month." "They have a shortage, and Europe already doesn't have enough [shells]," Putin stated. "So, they didn’t find anything better than to propose the use of cluster munitions," he pointed out.
** Russian forces have knocked out one-third of Ukraine’s Bradleys – media
The BFV is a tracked and lightly armored vehicle with the capability to transport about ten soldiers and mount weaponry such as a 25mm cannon and a TOW anti-tank missile launcher.
When the administration of President Joe Biden agreed in January to send BFVs to Kiev, the Pentagon touted the vehicles as “tank-killers” and claimed they would provide “a level of firepower and armor that will bring advantages on the battlefield.” US media outlets such as Newsweek cited military experts as saying the Bradleys “could become a game-changer,”potentially even enabling Ukraine to retake Crimea. Russian officials warned that the BFVs and other Western-supplied weaponry would “only prolong the suffering of the Ukrainian people.”
With dozens of Bradleys and other hardware being knocked out of action by Russian forces, Ukrainian units have been forced to abandon their armored vehicles and advance slowly on foot, the Washington Post reported on Saturday. “You can no longer do anything with just a tank with some armor because the minefield is too deep, and sooner or later, it will stop, and then it will be destroyed by concentrated fire,” Ukraine’s top general, Valery Zaluzhny, told the newspaper.
Nevertheless, a new $800 military aid package for Ukraine announced by the Biden administration earlier this month includes an additional 32 BFVs. The US also agreed to send cluster bombs to Kiev, citing disappointment with the counteroffensive.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that US shipments of cluster munitions to Ukraine would constitute a war crime. As for captured Western weaponry, such as BFVs, Russian specialists will use “reverse engineering”to adopt any military technology that might be useful to Moscow, Putin said in an interview aired on Sunday.
WESTERN PERSPECTIVE
Ukraine reports casualties in Russian shelling of city of Kharkiv
One man was killed and several people were injured on Sunday in Russian shelling of a district of Kharkiv, the biggest city in eastern Ukraine, local officials said.
Oleh Sinehubov, Kharkiv's governor, said on Telegram that one civilian man born in 1999 was killed in the attack on a southern part of Kharkiv. In an earlier post he said a fire had broken out at the site, and medics had hospitalized three men with shrapnel wounds and treated one person on the spot.
Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said a total of seven people were injured in the shelling of the southern Osnovyanskyi district of the city. Reuters could not independently confirm details of the attack and casualty figures.
Ukraine recaptured much of the eastern Kharkiv region in September, with Russian forces occupying now only a small strip of land there.
** Ukraine says fighting in east has intensified
Fighting in eastern Ukraine has "somewhat intensified" as Ukrainian and Russian forces clash in at least three areas on the eastern front, a senior Ukrainian defence official said on Sunday.
Separately, the Ukrainian military indicated it had taken control of part of a southeastern village in Donetsk region, near a string of small settlements Ukraine recaptured in June.
"The enemy made an unsuccessful attempt to regain lost positions in the northern part of Staromayorske," the general staff of Ukraine's armed forces said in a regular update.
It was the first official acknowledgment of progress at the village since Ukraine launched a counteroffensive in June, aiming to retake occupied territory and seize the initiative in Russia's full-scale invasion, now in its 17th month.
Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said on Telegram that Russian forces have been attacking in the direction of Kupyansk in the Kharkiv region for two successive days.
"We are on the defensive," Maliar wrote. "There are fierce battles. The positions of both sides change dynamically several times a day."
Maliar also said the two armies were pummelling one another around the ruined city of Bakhmut but that Ukrainian forces were "gradually moving forward" along its southern flank.
She added that Kyiv's troops were also fending off Russian attacks near Avdiivka and Maryinka.
A spokesman for the military's southern command said in a separate statement on Sunday that Ukrainian forces had advanced more than a kilometre (0.6 miles) in one part of the southern front.
Kyiv has made incremental gains in parts of the east and south since launching its long-awaited counteroffensive.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with state television, part of which was released on Sunday, that the operation was "not succeeding" and that attempts to break through Russian defences had failed.
RT/Tass/Reuters