Russian President Vladimir Putin, facing delays in military production and rising battlefield losses, has urged the government to cut bureaucracy and take his position in Ukraine, where a Ukrainian counterattack is causing Russian troops to retreat. He demanded the production of enough weapons and supplies to feed an army.
Russian military shortages in the eight months of war were so pronounced that Putin had to create structures to deal with them.
On Tuesday, Putin chaired a new commission designed to accelerate the production and supply of weapons and materiel for the Russian army, stressing the need to “get a faster tempo in all areas”. did.
Russian reports indicate that many of those mobilized for the fighting in Ukraine (the figure given by the Russian president was 222,000 out of an original target of 300,000) were armed with proper basics such as medical kits and anti-aircraft jackets. He admitted that he was not provided with equipment and had to find his own supplies.
Last week, Putin visited a Russian training ground to show well-equipped soldiers to show that all was well.
According to other reports, the Russian army is being forced to use increasingly outdated and unreliable equipment, and some of the newly mobilized troops are being rushed to the front lines of war with little training. ing.
As an alternative to the increasingly scarce Russian-made long-range precision weapons, the UK Ministry of Defense said Russia is now likely using a number of drones to try to penetrate Ukraine’s air defense system. Stated.
Russia is “short of artillery ammunition,” the ministry said in a report on Tuesday.
The Washington, D.C.-based War Research Institute said, “The slow pace of Russian airstrikes, missiles, and drone strikes is due to declining stockpiles of missiles and drones, and to Russia’s strategic military objectives. “It may reflect the limited effectiveness of attacks to achieve that.”
Despite supply problems, Russian forces inflicted extensive damage and high casualties in Ukraine, destroying homes, public buildings and the Ukrainian power grid. The World Bank has so far estimated damages to Ukraine at her €350 billion ($348 billion).
According to the United Nations, 15,246 civilian casualties were recorded in Ukraine between the beginning of the Russian invasion on February 24 and the beginning of October. Of those, he had 6,114 killed and 9,132 wounded. About 7.7 million Ukrainians have fled their country and are now living as refugees across Europe, according to the United Nations.
New British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday that his country’s support for Ukraine was unwavering, according to a Downing Street spokesperson. I promised.
Snack’s predecessors, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, have vocally pledged full support to the war-torn country, and the new prime minister says Britain’s military support will continue under his leadership. “We will be stronger than ever,” he said.
“The prime minister said … President Zelensky can count on his government to maintain continued solidarity,” a spokesperson said.
In his nightly video speeches, Zelensky said he had invited Sunak to Ukraine.
A senior Ukrainian official predicted late Tuesday that the “most intense battle” was yet to come in the strategic southern province of Kherson, partly occupied by Russia, and Moscow forces to face a Ukrainian counterattack. digging down.
The capital and river port of the region, which had a pre-war population of about 280,000, Kherson is the largest urban center Russia has still held since it was occupied early in the invasion of Ukraine eight months ago. .
Ukrainian forces do not appear to have gained a strong footing in the counteroffensive in the Kherson area since early October.
“As for Kherson, everything is clear. The Russians are replenishing and strengthening their groups there,” Oleksiy Arrestovich, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said online Tuesday evening. told in the video.
“It means that no one is preparing to withdraw. On the contrary, the fiercest fighting will take place for Kherson,” said Arrestovich, who did not specify when the fight would take place.
On Tuesday, one of Moscow’s allies urged Russia to increase the pace and scale of its destruction of Ukraine.
Ramzan Kadyrov, a Chechen regional leader who sent troops to fight in Ukraine, has urged Moscow to annihilate entire cities in retaliation for Ukrainian shelling of Russian territory.
“Our response was too weak,” Kadyrov said on the messaging app channel.
“If a shell hits our area, we need to wipe an entire city off the face of the earth so that they don’t think they can fire in our direction,” he said.
