Its “catastrophic” losses: Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that his forces were crushing the Ukrainian counter-offensive, at a time when kyiv, on the contrary, is claiming initial gains.
It is the second time since Friday that the Russian president has said that his army is repelling the assault that Ukraine has been preparing for months, with supplies of Western weapons, to drive Russian troops out of occupied Ukrainian territories.
” The loss [ukrainiennes] are approaching a level that can be described as catastrophic,” Putin said during a televised meeting with Russian war correspondents, claiming that Russian losses were “ten times lower.”
According to him, kyiv has lost “about 25% or perhaps 30% of the equipment” provided by the West, putting forward the figure of 160 tanks and more than 360 armored vehicles. On the Russian side, he admitted the loss of 54 tanks, some of which are repairable.
These data were unverifiable from independent sources. Russia also communicates very little about its own losses, despite several retreats since the start of its attack on its neighbor.
Moscow claimed for the first time on Tuesday the capture of German Leopard tanks and American Bradley armored vehicles, vehicles supplied by the West so that Kiev could carry out its vast counter-offensive.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has warned that he cannot replace all the tanks supplied by his country to Ukraine and decommissioned.
For his part, the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, had indicated Monday evening that the offensive in the south and the east to liberate territories occupied by Russia was “difficult”, but was progressing with the recovery, according to the Ministry of Defense of seven villages in the south and advances around Bakhmout (east), a martyred city ravaged by nearly a year of fighting.
Russia not sufficiently prepared
According to Vladimir Putin, Ukraine launched its “large-scale counter-offensive” on June 4 on “several” sectors of the front, citing two areas in the south and one in the east, without mentioning Bakhmout.
“The enemy has not succeeded in any of these areas,” said the Russian president.
According to military analysts, Ukraine has not yet launched the bulk of its forces in its counter-offensive, testing the front line in search of weak points. Currently, these operations seem to be concentrated on three main axes: Bakhmout (east), the area of Vougledar (southeast) and that of Orikhiv (south).
While proclaiming the failure of the Kiev counter-offensive, Mr. Putin also admitted that Russia had not sufficiently prepared for attacks on its soil from Ukraine and that its army lacked high-precision ammunition and of drones.
“Of course, it is necessary to strengthen the border. […] It was possible to be better prepared for this,” he said, as Russia had to evacuate thousands of people after a massive incursion and strikes from Ukraine.
“It became clear that several things were missing: high-precision ammunition, communication equipment, drones,” Mr. Putin also listed.
eleven dead
On the ground, Russia once again launched its missiles towards Ukrainian cities overnight from Monday to Tuesday.
In Kryvyï Rig, the birthplace of Mr. Zelensky in central Ukraine, these bombardments left at least eleven dead on Tuesday before dawn, with the destruction in particular of a residential building and a warehouse.
The regional administration published a photo of the building badly damaged and blackened by flames, smoke billowing from the floors.
In Kiev, the military administration also reported night strikes of “cruise missiles”, while ensuring that “all enemy targets in the airspace around Kiev have been detected and successfully destroyed”.
The IAEA at the Zaporizhia power plant
The director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, was in Kiev on Tuesday and was due to inspect the Russian-occupied Zaporizhia nuclear power plant on Wednesday to see in particular whether it was endangered by the destruction of a dam on the Dnieper River.
The destruction of the Kakhovka dam, whose water is used to cool the six reactors, had no effect on the cooling of the plant, according to the Russian and Ukrainian authorities.
According to Mr. Grossi, there is no “immediate danger”, but the water level in the cooling basin worries him. “There is a serious risk, because the water that is there is limited,” he said.
“I want to make my own assessment, go out there, talk with management about the measures they’ve taken and then come up with a more definitive assessment of the danger,” he told reporters.
The destruction of the dam caused severe flooding in the south, killing 17 in the Russian-occupied area and 10 in the Ukrainian-controlled area.
Ukraine accuses Moscow of having demolished the structure to hinder its counter-offensive. Russia denies and accuses kyiv in return.