Vladimir Putin pledged to use all military means to defend Russian territory and assured on Wednesday that Russia would only use nuclear weapons in response to an enemy attack.
“If we are attacked, we will retaliate,” the Kremlin leader said at a meeting of his human rights council, emphasizing that his country’s strategy is based on the policy of “the so-called retaliatory attack”.
Russian president speaks of ‘prolonged conflict’
Russia has sent nearly half of those recruited during the partial mobilization of reservists, or about 150,000 soldiers, to Ukraine, Vladimir Putin announced, acknowledging it was a protracted conflict.
“Of our 300,000 mobilized fighters, our men, our defenders of the fatherland, 150,000 are in the area of operations”Putin told a meeting of the Kremlin-linked Human Rights Council.
Of those, he added, 77,000 are directly involved in the fighting.
The Russian president acknowledged that the conflict in Ukraine is “long” while presenting “significant achievements” regarding the annexation he claims of four Ukrainian regions.
‘Of course it is a long process’Putin admitted at the meeting, before hailing “new areas”, a “significant result for Russia”.
However, Putin has ruled out a second reservist mobilization to reinforce troops already fighting in Ukraine.
“These rumors… make no sense. At the moment neither the State nor the Ministry of Defense has any need for them”Putin said at the meeting.
On September 21, Vladimir Putin ordered the partial mobilization of 300,000 reservists in light of the advance of Ukrainian defenses in the east and south of the neighboring country, the areas hitherto most heavily attacked and controlled by the Russians.
Russia launched a military offensive in Ukraine on February 24, which is still ongoing and has resulted in the deaths of at least 6,702 civilians and 10,479 wounded, figures the UN has presented as confirmed, underlining that they are well below the real lie.
In terms of military casualties, Ukraine and Russia have claimed that some figures have been imposed on the other side, but without independent validation, such as much of the information they release about the course of the conflict.
Source: DN
