In an uncommon, wide-ranging interview with struggle correspondents and navy bloggers, President Vladimir V. Putin on Tuesday portrayed the Russian navy as standing agency towards the long-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive and advised that the battle was fulfilling the objectives he set initially.

“The enemy did not succeed in any of the sectors,” Mr. Putin stated of the Ukrainian offensive that has been rolling out over latest days, as a substitute struggling big losses in contrast with comparatively few for Russia. In phrases of tanks, for instance, he stated that Ukraine had misplaced 160 in contrast with 54 for Russia, including that a number of the latter may very well be repaired. His claims couldn’t be independently confirmed.

Mr. Putin touched on nearly each facet of the battle in latest weeks. He selected a format he has not often used, permitting 18 reporters to inquire in regards to the struggle for greater than two hours in a method paying homage to his annual “Direct Line” efficiency, when he answers questions for hours from all over the country.

Russia didn’t must draft extra new troopers as a result of it had attracted about 156,000 contractors or different volunteers since January, he stated, on prime of the 300,000 drafted final 12 months.

Trying to make the very best of the truth that Russia had suffered repeated setbacks with each males and weaponry, he advised that the nation had realized helpful classes on the right way to higher manage its armed forces.

He admitted that the cross-border assaults from Ukraine by Russian partisans had been damaging, suggesting with some bravado that Russia may need to carve out an “exclusion zone” on the Ukrainian facet of the border to stop its artillery from reaching into Russia.

At one level he additionally advised that the Russian military may need to once more march on Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital. Russian forces had been pushed out of Kyiv after failing to take it as promised in just some days after the full-scale invasion in February 2022, and misplaced a large stretch of the realm across the japanese metropolis of Kharkiv to a Ukrainian offensive final fall.

To Nikolai Petrov, a seasoned political analyst, all the effort sounded as if Mr. Putin was attempting to display that he was a commander in chief totally accountable for the info on the bottom. More necessary, Mr. Petrov speculated that the remarks may very well be a prelude to searching for negotiations by implying that the Ukrainian counteroffensive was doomed.

Given that most of the people trusts the correspondents and bloggers way over the Ministry of Defense, his selection of interlocutors, together with throwing out particulars just like the variety of Russian tanks destroyed, was designed to construct a semblance of evenhanded evaluation, Mr. Petrov stated.

“There is no reason for him to be so public and to give such detailed explanations unless he was trying to address a Western or Ukrainian audience,” he stated. “The very idea is to demonstrate that he is the commander in chief who knows everything about everything.”

Mr. Putin claimed that Russia was doing an excellent job of demilitarizing Ukraine regardless of its Western backers. He admitted to numerous bits of data that had been an open secret earlier than, just like the pardons he was issuing for convicts who had fought for the Wagner mercenary group.

Much of what he stated was not new, similar to threatening to tug out of a deal that has allowed Ukraine to export tens of millions of tons of grain from its Black Sea ports, regardless of Russia’s management of the waterways, saying that he was solely doing it as a result of a lot of the world wanted the grain.

He famous that navy manufacturing had elevated 2.7 occasions, and in some circumstances was 10 occasions higher, he stated, utilizing a considerably odd anecdote for instance their high quality. A T-90 Russian tank that hit a land mine had emerged unscathed, though the particular person inside took such a tough hit that he died, Mr. Putin stated.

In newest chapter of the feud between Sergei Ok. Shoigu, the minister of protection, and Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the pugnacious founding father of the Wagner personal navy power, Mr. Prigozhin rejected a name by the Defense Ministry for all such organizations to signal contracts by July 1. The transfer was thought of an effort by the ministry to increase some management over such forces, that are technically unlawful in Russia, whereas additionally granting them full navy advantages.

Mr. Putin stated he backed the decision for paramilitary organizations to signal such contracts. Mr. Petrov, the analyst, advised that the president was utilizing Mr. Prigozhin as a foil, making the president appear the extra temperate determine because the mercenary commander repeatedly requires escalating assaults towards Ukraine and placing the economic system on a struggle footing. “It is his style before any negotiation to let his guy say something horrible in order to look better,” Mr. Petrov stated.

Alina Lobzina contributed reporting.