Putin claims Ukraine’s counter-offensive has suffered ‘catastrophic’ losses

The Russian President has claimed that Ukraine’s counter-offensive isn’t making any dents in the Kremlin’s captured areas (Picture: EPA/ AFP / Reuters)

President Vladimir Putin has claimed that Ukraine’s counter-offensive has been unsuccessful, with its army suffering major losses.

He said that Kyiv’s losses were approaching a ‘catastrophic’ level, however that has not been verified.

Ukrainian President Zelensky has also denied the counter-offensive is failing, and said ‘There is movement forward,’ in his nightly video address.

He thanked Ukrainian troops for ‘every step and every metre of Ukrainian land that is being liberated from Russian evil’.

This was echoed by Valery Zaluzhny, the commander-in-chief of the country’s armed forces, who wrote on Telegram there had been ‘some successes, we are implementing our plans, moving forward’.

Ukraine’s military declared on Wednesday that Russian losses in the past 24 hours had included 680 soldiers, eight tanks and an air defence system.

Kyiv’s counter-offensive is in its early stages, and modest gains have been made in the eastern Donetsk and south-eastern Zaporizhzhia regions.

Russia struck Zelensky’s hometown killing 10 people and injuring dozens yesterday (Picture: via REUTERS)

Emergency services work to control a fire at a business centre after Russia’s attack on Ukraine (Picture: via REUTERS)

Last week Ukraine said it had liberated three villages – claiming they are the army’s first victories since its counter-offensive began.

Footage on social media shows Ukrainian troops celebrating in Blahodatne and Neskuchne – which is believed to mean that they have taken back control of the small villages.

Kyiv’s deputy defence minister, Hannah Maliar has said nearby Makarivka was also taken.

Yesterday top political scientist Professor Sergei Karaganov who is close to Putin called for Russia to use nuclear weapons to smash ‘the will of the west’.

He bizarrely claimed that using nuclear weapons will ‘save humanity’ – and could stop the west from continuing to support Ukraine in their ongoing war.

Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg said that while it was still ‘early days’, progress was being made in repelling Russian troops.

‘What we do know is that the more land that Ukrainians are able to liberate, the stronger hand they will have at the negotiating table,’ he told US President Joe Biden at a White House meeting.

Without providing evidence, Mr Putin said the Ukrainians had lost over 160 tanks while Russia had lost 54. He also suggested Ukraine’s troop losses were ten times greater than Russia’s – insisting Kyiv had not succeeded ‘in any of the sectors’.

His comments were dismissed by a US official, who anonymously told the AP news agency they were ‘not accurate’ and warned against taking Moscow’s public assessments seriously.

Caption: Ukraine Counter Offensive Map 11.06Metro Graphics

Residential buildings were hit by the missile yesterday(Picture: REUTERS)

Although most of Mr Putin’s statements during his meeting with war correspondents were typically self-congratulatory, he did acknowledge that authorities in Moscow could have better anticipated recent cross-border attacks into Russia from Ukraine.

He said he was considering whether ‘to create on Ukrainian territory a kind of sanitary zone at such a distance from which it would be impossible to get our territory’.

Yesterday Zelensky again called for tougher sanctions to halt the flow of weapon components, some of which he said were being manufactured by Ukraine’s partner countries.

He said that Russia was using such components to build the type of missiles that on Tuesday struck an apartment building and warehouses in Kryvyi Rih, killing 11 people and wounding dozens more.

On the same day, the US announced it would send a new military aid package to Ukraine worth $325 million.

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He said that Kyiv’s losses were approaching a ‘catastrophic’ level, however that has not been verified.