Putin’s Latest Statements on Ukraine Conflict, Mobilization, and Attacks on Russian Territory

The drone attacks on Russian territory, speculation about a possible new mobilization and Ukraine’s counter-offensive: Russian President Putin was very talkative today during an hours-long meeting with journalists and military bloggers. In his answers he kept himself mostly flat, but also made a number of striking statements.

Putin had invited “war correspondents” for an interview, during which they could ask him questions about the course of the war in Ukraine. For the first time, he commented on recent developments in the struggle since Ukraine’s counter-offensive began.

That counter-offensive began on June 4, according to Putin, with Ukraine allegedly attacking Russian forces from several directions. According to him, the Ukrainian losses are ten times the losses on the Russian side and Ukraine has not been successful anywhere. That claim cannot be independently verified.

The military bloggers support the war, but are not afraid to criticize the Russian authorities. For example, messages regularly appear on Telegram denouncing “those who say everything is going according to plan”.

Putin also remained vague in his statements today. For example, he replied to a question about a potential mobilization that there are no plans for it now, but that he does not rule it out in the future. It depends on what goals we set for ourselves, he said. “And do we still want to go back to Kyiv?”. The question then hung in the air. Russia withdrew after several weeks last year after suffering heavy losses in an attempt to advance on the capital.

Russia quickly tightened its conscription law this spring. As a result, it is becoming increasingly difficult to escape conscription and since this week, conscripts are required to hand in their international passports during their service period. Last year, hundreds of thousands of Russians fled their country to avoid mobilization.

Conscripts do not have to go to the area where the “special military operation” is taking place, Putin said. They are deployed in other regions in Russia.

He also said about the recent attacks on Russian territory, such as in the Belgorod border region, that Russia could have been better prepared for such attacks. “In principle, one could have assumed that this is how the enemy would behave,” he said. Russia will increase the effectiveness of its anti-aircraft defenses, he announced.

At the same time, he said that weapons production has now increased, but that there are too few precision weapons and that it is difficult to detect drones. Russia does have ways of dealing with the attacks, Putin said, “but that doesn’t mean there won’t be so-called inbound attacks on our territory.” He stressed that all this is because Ukraine receives so many weapons from the west, “something they can’t always keep up”.