Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday vowed to fulfill the objectives of the country’s “special military operation” in Ukraine even as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy left for the US to lobby for more arms.
In a speech at the yearly meeting with his defense chiefs, Putin said Moscow will meet all the goals of its military operation in Ukraine as he hailed the military leaders as “heroes”.
The Russian president said the NATO military alliance was using its full capabilities against Russia and urged the defense chiefs to use their experience gained in the past ten months in Ukraine and also in Syria.
He said battlefield losses in Ukraine were “a common tragedy” and that he continues to see the Ukrainians as a “brotherly nation”.
Pertinently, Russia launched the operation in Ukraine in late February, following Kiev’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements and Moscow’s recognition of the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.
At the time, Russian President Vladimir Putin said one of the goals of what he called a “special military operation” was to “de-Nazify” Ukraine.
Putin on Wednesday said Russia’s enemies wanted to see the country disintegrate, adding that his country was forced to launch the military action due to Western “provocations”.
He pledged to give the Russian armed forces anything they ask to support the military operation in Ukraine, where the fighting continues to intensify due to Western military support to Kiev.
Putin also added that the defense ministry must accept criticism of its actions during the “special military operation” in Ukraine and that the recent mobilization drive underlined specific problems.
In his remarks, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said Russia’s forces were destroying Ukraine’s military potential and accused the West of trying to “drag out” the conflict.
Shoigu admitted that the mobilization drive, which called up 300,000 reservists to the armed forces, proved a severe test for the country and the army but said it boosted Russia’s combat capabilities.
The minister proposed raising the age range for mandatory military service to cover citizens aged 21-30 as he said forces would continue fighting in Ukraine next year.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin has warned that an increase in the supply of US arms to Ukraine will only aggravate the protracted conflict and “does not bode well” for Ukraine.
“Weapon supplies (by the US) continue, the assortment of supplied weapons is expanding. All this, of course, leads to an aggravation of the conflict and, in fact, does not bode well for Ukraine,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday.
Peskov’s comments were the first official Russian reaction to the news that Ukrainian President Zelenskyy was heading to Washington for a meeting with US President Joe Biden.
It marks the first time Zelensky would leave the country since the start of the war in February.
He also said that Putin had no plans to meet the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi, who is expected to visit Russia on Thursday,
Grossi is reportedly visiting Russia to discuss a security zone around the Zaporizhzhia power plant which is based in Russian-controlled territory.
Any moment now I am expecting John Cleese (a veteran of Monty Python) to jump out of the bushes and announce the creation of the Ministry of Silly Wars, with Donald Trump as the deranged leader. For you youngsters out there, Monty Python’s skit, The Ministry of Silly Walks, helped make the members of MP legends. I had to reference Monty Python because the line of bullshit the Trump administration is feeding the American people and the world about the amazing, obliterating US attack on Iranian nuclear sites on Sunday morning, is more ridiculous that all of the silly walks pictured in the following video:
My hopes that Donald Trump would finally act like a responsible adult are dashed. He’s a dangerous buffoon. While the team around him are working frantically to maintain the fiction that Trump has a vision and is calling the shots on the foreign policy front, he is careening around the globe like an out-of-control cue ball on a billiards table. It started a week ago… first, he claimed...
Tuesday marks the third anniversary of the launch of the Fujian, China's first aircraft carrier equipped with electromagnetic catapults. Official media said China is about to enter a three-aircraft-carrier era, with the Fujian expected to enter service by 2025.
After the launch of the Fujian on June 17, 2022, it carried out its first sea trial from May 1 to 8 in 2024. Since then, the Fujian has completed multiple sea trials, accumulating more than 100 days of sea trial, China Central Television (CCTV) News reported on Tuesday.
Wei Dongxu, a Chinese military affairs commentator, said that the aircraft carrier Fujian has been making steady progress in sea trials, and is expected to be commissioned within this year, CCTV News reported.
With a full displacement of more than 80,000 tons, the Fujian is the world's first conventionally powered aircraft carrier to feature electromagnetic catapult technologies, according to CCTV News. The report noted that it will carry a wide variety of carrier-borne...
Chinese President Xi Jinping said Tuesday that China and Central Asian countries have explored and formed the China-Central Asia Spirit, which features mutual respect, mutual trust, mutual benefit, mutual assistance, and the pursuit of common modernization through high-quality development.
Xi made the remarks in his speech at the second China-Central Asia Summit in the Kazakh capital of Astana.
Xi said that the Chinese side has decided to establish three cooperation centers and a trade facilitation platform within the China-Central Asia cooperation mechanism.
When addressing the summit, Xi said these institutions include the China-Central Asia poverty reduction cooperation center, the China-Central Asia education exchange cooperation center, the China-Central Asia desertification control cooperation center, as well as the China-Central Asia trade facilitation cooperation....more below
