Fewer in number and less well armed, the Ukrainian forces are gradually losing ground, but at a pace that has accelerated since the fall. Russian soldiers are now at the gates of Pokrovsk, a large mining city and logistics hub in eastern Ukraine that they have been trying to take for months.
“Russian troops have the strategic initiative across the entire line of contact,” assured Mr. Putin in a speech to the main executives of his Defense Ministry.
He thus claimed the “liberation”, according to the vocabulary used by Russia to designate the capture of Ukrainian towns and villages, “of 189 localities” during 2024.
“I would like to emphasize that the past year was a pivotal year in terms of achieving the objectives of the special military operation,” he added, again using the euphemism required to mention the assault on Ukraine.
Russian Defense Minister Andrei Beloussov, who spoke after Mr. Putin, indicated that Russia had taken 4,500 km2 of Ukrainian territory this year, and was currently advancing at “30 km2 per day”.
The Russian army advanced across 725 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory during the month of November, its largest territorial gain in a month since March 2022 and the first weeks of its large-scale assault, according to an analysis by the AFP based on data from the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
The previous record dated from October, the advance was then 478 km2.
Ukraine, a country larger than France, has an area of more than 600,000 km2 of which Russia controls nearly 20%, including Crimea.
The Russian army also claimed on Monday the conquest of a new locality, Yelyzavtivka, located around ten kilometers south of Kourakhové, an industrial town in the East.
The day before, it had claimed the villages of Vessely Gaï, south of Kourakhové, and that of Pushkiné, south of Pokrovsk.
The Ukrainian force grouping in Khortytsia reported on Sunday “exhausting confrontations” in the surrounding area and in the town of Kurakhové, as well as further north in Chasiv Yar.
kyiv is struggling to contain Russian troops and is demanding increased support from its Western allies.
But the sustainability of this assistance, crucial since the start of the Russian offensive almost three years ago, is not guaranteed, with the return to power of Donald Trump in January in the United States, which until now was the main donor of Ukraine.
Moscow and kyiv are trying to influence the Republican's position, against the backdrop of possible negotiations between the two parties which could begin next year.
Mr. Trump has already called for an “immediate ceasefire” and talks, so much so that Europeans and Ukrainians fear that he could force kyiv into major concessions and grant the Kremlin a military and geopolitical victory. .
Mr. Putin once again accused NATO countries, allies of Ukraine, of posing a threat to Russia on Monday.
“NATO countries are increasing their military spending. Alliance intervention groups have been formed and assembled near Russia's borders,” he accused, while the Alliance has strengthened its presence in Eastern Europe due to the Russian assault against its neighbor.
The Russian Defense Minister judged that his army must prepare “for all possible developments in the situation, including the possibility of armed conflict with NATO in Europe in the decades to come”.
Russia rejects the term invasion when it comes to its assault on Ukraine, and believes that its offensive aimed to push back NATO, which kyiv wants to join, and curb an existential threat.
In this context, Vladimir Putin once again praised on Monday the considerable increase in arms production in the country, and called for it to continue.
“All issues relating to mass production and deployment of national systems to carry out strikes, including hypersonic systems, must be resolved,” he said.
The Kremlin master also indicated that his Russian forces were starting to use AI-assisted systems.
“Soldiers are receiving advanced robotic systems, some of which use artificial intelligence (AI) technologies,” he said.
