“The dynamics are positive and everything is developing in accordance with the plans of the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff. I hope that our fighters give us more joy with their military results,” Putin said in an interview with Russian public television, broadcast this Sunday (15).
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QuestionOn the runway of an airport, next to the presidential plane, the president responded to questions from a journalist from the Rossia-1 channel about “the news from Soledar”, which the Russian Army said it had conquered on Friday (13).
The capture of the city was presented in Moscow as a victory after months of setbacks in Ukraine, in particular the withdrawal of the Kharkiv region (east) and the city of Kherson (south) due to Ukrainian counteroffensives.
According to the Russian army, the conquest of Soledar, where there are huge galleries that would allow it to store military material and infiltrate behind enemy lines, is an important step in encircling the neighboring city of Bakhmut, which Moscow has been trying to take for months.
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On Saturday (14), Ukrainian authorities again denied Moscow's announcement and claimed to have “under control” the city of Soledar, which had 10 inhabitants before the Russian offensive and is now destroyed.
(With AFP)
War in Ukraine: everything you need to know about the conflict
