RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE
Ukraine's counteroffensive has 'failed' – Putin
Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive has not “stalled” but failed, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared on Monday. With Ukrainian losses mounting and Kiev ramping up its conscription efforts, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu affirmed his commander-in-chief's assessment.
The Ukrainian operation “is not stalled; it is a failure,”Putin declared, following talks with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in the resort city of Sochi.
“At least, this is how it looks today,” he continued. “Let’s see what happens next. I hope this will continue to be the case.”
In early June, Kiev launched its long-awaited counteroffensive against Russian forces, using Western-provided tanks and armored vehicles to attack multiple points along the Kherson-Donetsk frontline. According to Russian figures, advancing through minefields and without air support, Ukraine lost at least 43,000 men in the first two months of the operation alone. It failed to penetrate even the first line of Russia’s multi-layered defensive network.
The Ukrainian military has since switched tactics, relying on lighter and more mobile infantry units to seize individual buildings and positions. However, losses remain high, and with Russian forces effectively counteringthese advances with drone-corrected artillery fire, Kiev is urgently seeking to draft more troops.
Ukraine has loosened its medical requirements for military service and is reportedly considering extraditing draft dodgers who managed to flee the country since last February.
In separate remarks to the media on Monday, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu confirmed Putin’s assessment of the counteroffensive. “Today everything is exactly as our president said,” Shoigu declared. The minister noted that the Ukrainian military has "for the last ten days at least"been carrying out "violent attacks with large forces,” but has not managed to break Russia’s defenses.
Much of the fighting over the last two weeks has centered around the village of Rabotino, located in the Zaporozhye sector of the front and near the city of Artyomovsk/Bakhmut in the Donetsk Region. Although Kiev and its Western backers claim to be making incremental progress at Rabotino, The Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday that it repelled a Ukrainian attack on the village the previous night, killing up to 115 Ukrainian troops and destroying multiple armored vehicles and US-made artillery guns.
** Up to 50 flights delayed at Moscow airports after reported drone attacks
Up to 50 flights were delayed and six more cancelled at Moscow airports, according to online schedules of the Russian capital’s airports.
As of approximately 6:00 a.m. Moscow time six flights were delayed and two cancelled at the Domodedovo Airport, 17 flights were delayed and another one cancelled at the Vnukovo Airport, 23 flights were also delayed at the Sheremetyevo Airport, while the Zhukovsky Airport cancelled three flights.
The Russian Defense Ministry and Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin announced earlier about an attempted attack of Ukrainian drones on the Russian capital. The drones were destroyed en route to Moscow in the air space over the Kaluga, Moscow and Tver Regions.
WESTERN PERSPECTIVE
Give Russia security guarantees for lasting peace in Ukraine, Hungary says
The West should give Russia security guarantees and ban Ukraine from joining NATO, a senior Hungarian minister said on Sunday in comments likely to further strain Budapest’s already rocky relations with Kyiv.
To ensure lasting peace, “the Western world that supports Ukraine must give security guarantees to Russia, but definitely not NATO membership to the Ukrainians,” said Gergely Gulyás, minister in charge of the prime minister’s office, at a university event.
The remarks echoed comments by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán last week that the West “should make a deal with the Russians on the new security architecture to provide security and sovereignty for Ukraine but not membership in NATO.” Orban also said Ukraine has no chance of winning the war against Russia. In June, Orbán said that Kyiv was “no longer a sovereign state” and financially “non-existent,” sparking fury from Ukraine.
“Ukraine does not trade its territories or sovereignty,” Oleh Nikolenko, a spokesperson at Kyiv’s foreign ministry, said in response to Orbán’s most recent comments.
The repeated calls for giving Moscow security guarantees are likely to further fuel tensions between Hungary and Ukraine.
EU foreign ministers last week were unable to green-light an eighth tranche of military aid for Ukraine worth €500 million after Hungary blocked the disbursement of funds on the grounds that Kyiv had designated Budapest’s OTP bank an international sponsor of war.
Still, in a sign that Hungary wants to avoid a total collapse in relations, Hungarian President Katalin Novák visited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last month in a bid to improve bilateral ties.
Since 2018, Hungary has blocked Ukraine attending NATO ministerial-level meetings over claims Kyiv is discriminating against Hungarian ethnic minorities by limiting their rights to education in their native tongue.
Meanwhile, Hungarian lawmakers continue to delay the ratification of Sweden’s entry to NATO. While admitting the military alliance would become stronger if Sweden joined, Gulyás said Sunday that Budapest first wanted clarification from Stockholm on previous comments where it “accused our country with unworthy and baseless accusations.”
** Ukraine says it retakes more ground as Zelenskiy visits front lines
Ukraine said on Monday its troops had regained more territory on the eastern front and were advancing south in their counteroffensive against Russian forces while President Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited two front-line areas.
Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said Kyiv's forces had retaken about 3 square km (1.16 square miles) of land in the past week around the eastern city of Bakhmut, which was captured by Russian troops in May after months of heavy fighting.
She also reported unspecified "success" in the direction of the villages Novodanylivka and Novoprokopivka in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia, but gave no details.
Ukraine has now taken back about 47 square km of territory around Bakhmut since starting its counteroffensive in early June, Maliar wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Reuters was not able to verify the reports and Russia has not confirmed the Ukrainian advances. Both sides have counted gains of tiny villages or pockets land as recent successes.
Videos posted on the Ukrainian presidential website on Monday showed Zelenskiy visiting troops in the eastern Donetsk region, where Bakhmut is located, and in Zaporizhzhia region, where Kyiv's forces are trying to push southward to the Sea of Azov.
Zelenskiy was shown presenting medals to soldiers at a number of sites and offering thanks to medics at a field hospital on the southern front.
In his nightly address, delivered from a train, the president said the soldiers' feedback on the course of the conflict would be taken seriously.
"Everything that our fighters talked about will be put to participants in meetings of the command, especially regarding electronic warfare. Guys, we heard you clearly", he said.
Kyiv officials have bristled at criticism in Western media reports that the counteroffensive has been too slow and hindered by poor tactics -- particularly positioning troops in too many locations.
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said last week that critics should "shut up".
Kyiv has retaken a number of villages and settlements in its three-month-old offensive but its soldiers have been hampered by vast Russian minefields and trenches.
Maliar said last week that Ukrainian troops had broken through the first line of Russian defences, and Ukraine's military expects now to advance more rapidly.
Moscow has continued to carry out air strikes on Ukrainian targets including port infrastructure, and has reported drone attacks on Russian territory.
A Russian Defence Ministry account on Telegram on Monday quoted an officer with the code name Hedgehog as saying: "The enemy is attacking in a strong and serious fashion, but we are standing firm. We will not let them through."
RT/Tass/Politico/Reuters
