War in Ukraine: Putin ‘has no doubt’ of Russia’s future victory

Despite several major military setbacks, notably in the autumn in the Kharkiv region and then in Kherson, Vladimir Putin assured us on Wednesday that he had “no doubts” that Russia would win its offensive in Ukraine almost eleven months after it began.

Victory “is assured, I have no doubt about it,” the Russian president said during a trip to an arms factory in St. Petersburg. According to him, what can help Russia is “the unity of the Russian people, the courage and heroism of our soldiers (…) and, of course, the work of our military-industrial complex.”

The master of the Kremlin reiterated that, in his opinion, Russia was faced with a “neo-Nazi regime”, and confirmed that he would continue to “help” the inhabitants of the Ukrainian separatist east. “We cannot fail to protect them,” he insisted, “victory will be ours.”

Putin: “Everything is going according to plan”

Faced with these difficulties on the ground, Vladimir Putin ordered the mobilization of 300,000 reservists and a campaign to bomb Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

Last week, the Russian army and mercenaries from the Wagner Group announced that they had captured the modest town of Soledar in eastern Ukraine, located near Bakhmut, which the Russians had been trying to capture for months.

VIDEO. “Bloody” battles in Soledar

After the announcement of the capture of Soledar, “everything is going according to the plans of the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff. I hope that our fighters will please us with their combat results more than once,” the Russian President said in an interview with state television, which was broadcast on Sunday.

However, three days earlier, he appointed General Valeri Gerasimov, chief of staff of the Armed Forces since 2012, to lead the military operation in Ukraine.