Putin made the remarks while aboard a new nuclear submarine during a visit to an Arctic naval base on Thursday.

He claimed Russian forces have the “strategic initiative” along the Ukrainian front line and had reason to believe his army would “finish them off”.

He also reaffirmed his claim that Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whose term expired last year, lacks the legitimacy to sign a peace deal.

  • atro_city@fedia.io
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    3 days ago

    He claimed Russian forces have the “strategic initiative” along the Ukrainian front line and had reason to believe his army would “finish them off”.

    Like the 3 day “special operation”? Sure Putler.

  • null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 days ago

    “Not long ago I said we’d grind [Ukraine] down - now it looks like we’ll finish them off,” Putin told submariners.

    What kind of a leader talks about grinding an enemy down at the cost of the lives of conscripts. “We’ll just keep throwing conscripts at them and they’ll give up eventually”.

    The comments about “only” 180k soldiers are also telling. He thinks of the numbers like money, as in you spend the soldiers and they’re gone.

    I presume troops from UK and France would be a deterrent, and a profound one at that.