Putin announced the failure of Ukraine’s counter-offensive

The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) are preparing new offensive operations in certain areas, but overall the counteroffensive “failed completely,” said Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Journalist Pavel Zarubin asked Putin to talk about the situation in the special military operation zone and comment on Kyiv’s statements that the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ counter-offensive is “stalling.” Fragment of an interview for the program “Moscow. Kremlin. Putin” published in Zarubin’s Telegram channel.

“As for the counter-offensive, which is allegedly stalled, it failed completely. We know that in certain areas of hostilities, however, the opposing side is preparing new active offensive operations. we see it, we know it, and we also react to it accordingly,” the head of state said.

The president called what is happening now along the entire line of contact “active defense,” and there Russian troops are improving the situation “almost throughout this entire space.” This applies to the Kupyansky, Zaporozhye, and Avdeevsky directions, Putin clarified.

“I want to thank our Armed Forces, leadership, but most of all, our fighters on the front lines for their courage and heroism,” he said.

Ukraine has been carrying out a counteroffensive since early June. On September 4, Putin called it “not a slippage, but a failure.” Then he said that the counteroffensive was not bringing results to Ukraine; since its beginning, the Ukrainian Armed Forces had lost 71,500 troops. Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the UN Vasily Nebenzya in October at a meeting of the Security Council of the world organization reportedthat the Ukrainian counteroffensive can be considered completed, since Russian troops have begun active operations. According to the permanent representative, the price of the counteroffensive was tens of thousands of mobilized recruits and hundreds of units of destroyed Western equipment.