(Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Ukraine would soon run out of its own military equipment, making it totally reliant on hardware supplied by the West which would undermine its ability to fight for long.
Putin told an economic forum in St Petersburg that Ukraine had failed to make progress in its counteroffensive and said its army had “no chance” against Russia’s.
Recalling his stated objectives at the start of the war to “demilitarise” and “denazify” Ukraine, Putin said:
“As for demilitarisation, soon Ukraine will stop using its own equipment altogether. There’s nothing left. Everything on which they fight and everything that they use is brought in from the outside. Well, you can’t fight like that for long.”
Independent military analysts say Ukraine has outperformed Russia’s much larger army in the nearly 16 months of the war, forcing it into major retreats around the cities of Kyiv, Kharkiv and Kherson.
Ukraine’s military chiefs said on Friday that advancing Ukrainian troops were facing “desperate resistance” from Russian forces around the city of Bakhmut, which Russia captured last month after the longest battle of the war.
Ukraine says it has recaptured seven villages and 100 square km (38 square miles) in the early stages of its counteroffensive.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Friday its forces had repelled numerous attempted counterattacks by the Ukrainian army at different frontline locations in the last 24 hours, inflicting heavy losses on Kyiv’s forces.
(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
