TSAMTO, June 14. On June 13, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Russian bloggers and military officers covering the course of the special operation, and answered a number of questions about the current stage of ITS.
Below are the key statements of Vladimir Putin in a conversation with military officers.
"Ukraine is one of the areas of work on rocking Russia. By and large, of course, this should have been borne in mind when decisions were made on the collapse of the Soviet Union. But then, apparently, they counted on the fact that our deep relations, they would be decisive. But due to a number of circumstances – historical, economic, political – the situation has taken a different path."
"Demilitarization. We are gradually, methodically doing this. What is the APU fighting on? What do they produce, Leopard, or Bradley, or even the F-16s that have not yet entered service with them? They don't produce a shisha. The defense industry will soon cease to exist at all Ukrainian. What do they produce? Ammunition is brought to them, equipment is brought, guns are brought – everything is brought. You won't live that long, you won't last. So the issue of demilitarization, of course, is very practical."
"And the protection of people who are in the Donbas. Yes, unfortunately, there are still attacks. We will methodically work on this, solve it. And I am sure we will solve this issue."
"By and large, there have been no fundamental changes in terms of the goals that we set for ourselves at the beginning of the operation today. There are no changes."
"Ukraine's counteroffensive is large-scale, using, as I said publicly recently, reserves prepared for these purposes. It has been going on since the 4th, it started on the 4th. Continues until now and right now.
What can I say? The enemy had no success at any of the sites. They have big losses. For us, of course, thank God. I will not name the losses by personnel now – let the Ministry of Defense do it, count it, but there is also an unfavorable structure of losses for them. What do I mean by that? Of all the losses – and they are approaching an estimate that can be called catastrophic in terms of personnel – they have an unfavorable structure of these losses for them. Because the losses, as we know today, can be sanitary, or they can be irretrievable. And usually, now I'm afraid to make a mistake, but somewhere there are 25 percent irretrievable losses, a maximum of 30. They have almost 50-50. This is the first.
And the second. If we take irretrievable losses, it is clear that the defending side bears fewer losses, but still this ratio is one to ten, as they say, in our favor: we have ten times less than the losses of the armed forces of Ukraine.
As for armored vehicles, there is even more serious. They have lost over 160 tanks and over 360 armored vehicles of various types during this time. This is just what we see. There are still losses that we do not see, which are inflicted by high-precision long-range weapons on accumulations of personnel and equipment, so in fact these losses are more from Ukraine. According to my calculations, this is about 25, or maybe 30 percent of the volume of the equipment that was delivered from abroad. It seems to me that if they objectively calculate, they will agree with it. But, as far as I've seen from open Western sources, that's about what they seem to say.
So the offensive is underway, and the results to date are as I have just said.
But our losses – according to other indicators, let the Ministry of Defense say in terms of personnel – I said: they have lost over 160 tanks, we have 54, and some of them are subject to restoration and repair."
"It is clear who is responsible for the disaster at the Kakhovskaya HPP. The Ukrainian side was striving for this.
You know, I'm not going to say things 100 percent right now that I'm not sure about. By and large, we did not record large explosions before the destruction occurred. Anyway, that's what I was told. But they purposefully hit the Kakhovskaya HPP repeatedly with "Haimars" – that's the whole point. Maybe they had some kind of bookmark there, I don't know now, maybe they once again added something insignificant, and the destruction began."
"As for drones. You probably know, colleagues also know, at one time in Khmeimim we had a situation when these drones flew in, unfortunately, several grenades were thrown over the territory of Khmeimim, and we had losses among the personnel there. But we quickly learned how to deal with them in various ways and means. This is sometimes not easy, but a solvable task.
It seems to be the same here: our relevant structures need to make the necessary decisions, because this traditional air defense system, you know for sure, is also set up for something – missiles, large aircraft. And as a rule, the drones you are talking about are also aware of this, they are made of modern lightweight materials, made of wood, and it is quite difficult to detect them. But they show up. Although here, of course, it is necessary to carry out appropriate work, open it in time, and so on. And this, of course, is being done and will be done for sure, as for Moscow and other major centers – I don't even have any doubts about it.
It is necessary to adjust this work accordingly. And of course, it would be better if this was done in a timely manner and at the proper level. But, nevertheless, this work is being carried out, and, I repeat once again, I am sure that these tasks will be solved.
As for the border territories, there is a problem, it is connected – and I think you also understand this – mainly with the desire to divert our forces and funds to this side, to withdraw some units from those areas that are considered the most important and critical from the point of view of a possible offensive of the armed forces of Ukraine. There is no need for us to do this, but, of course, we must protect our citizens.
What can we talk about here? Of course, we need to strengthen the border, and for sure, if one of you works there, you see that this process is going on, it is going fast enough, and this task will also be solved - strengthening the borders. But the possibility of shelling our territory from the territory of Ukraine, of course, remains. And there are several ways to solve it.
Firstly, increasing the effectiveness of counter-battery warfare, but this does not mean that the so-called arrivals will not be on our territory. And if this continues, then we will probably have to consider the issue – I say this very carefully – in order to create some kind of sanitary zone on the territory of Ukraine at such a distance from which it would be impossible to reach our territory. But this is a separate issue, I'm not saying that we will start this work tomorrow. We need to look at how the situation will develop.
In principle, it could be assumed that the enemy would behave in this way, and it would probably be better to prepare. I agree. But the problem will be solved."
"Unlike today's Ukrainian authorities, we cannot act by terrorist methods: we have a state, a country, and there is a regime. They are actually acting like a regime based on terror: they have introduced a very strict counterintelligence regime, martial law. I don't think we need to do that now. We just need to improve and expand the work of law enforcement and special services. And in general, it seems to me that the tasks in this regard are also solvable."
"Starting from January of this year, we actually started work on concluding contracts with contractors, now, at this point in time, we have recruited over 150 thousand, and together with volunteers – 156 thousand people. And we had 300 mobilizations, as we remember. And now people come voluntarily, of their own free will. In fact, the work began in February – 156 thousand people, and the work continues: over the past week, 9.5 thousand signed contracts – for a week.
Under these conditions, the Ministry of Defense reports that there is no need for mobilization today."
"About weapons, the development of the defense industry. You know, we wouldn't have had any opportunities if we hadn't announced and started implementing the defense industry modernization program eight years ago, maybe you remember when it was. Remember, yes, everyone here is present, many probably paid attention. It was probably eight years ago, maybe even a little more: we have started a program of modernization of the military-industrial complex. We allocated very large funds for that period of time and gradually began to re-equip our enterprises, build new ones, install new modern equipment and so on. Therefore, the groundwork was made very solid.
Of course, during the special military operation, it became clear that many things were missing. These are high-precision ammunition, means of communication. And drones and so on. We have them – unfortunately, we lack them quantitatively. And to this day, when I talk to the guys who are right on the front line, they need ZALA, they need means of counter–battery warfare - both bigger and smaller, more effective. Although our healthy ones are quite effective, but they are few and more difficult to work with.
I have just said that where the Ukrainian army is trying to attack, several tanks have already been destroyed, in my opinion, including by kamikaze drones. They are used very effectively, probably much more effectively than the means that the enemy has, but they are not enough. And there are not enough "Eagles", and the quality of these "Eagles" needs to be improved, although they fulfill their task. That is, a lot of what is needed. Modern means of anti-tank warfare are needed, and modern tanks are needed.
The T-90 "Breakthrough" is the best tank in the world – 100 percent. Now we can say that the T-90 "Breakthrough" is the best tank in the world: as soon as it gets into position, everything is there – there is nothing for anyone to do. Further, more precisely, and the security is higher.
That is, there are groundwork in all directions, the question is to build up.
I said about the groundwork, and now what is happening now. Our production for the main types of weapons has increased 2.7 times over the year. And in the most popular areas – ten times. Ten times! Some industrial enterprises work in two shifts, and many – in three, practically both day and night, and work very efficiently.
I want, as they say in such cases, to take this opportunity to thank our workers, engineers who plow day and night. Many of them go straight to the front line and work to bring equipment right into the combat zone, and they work very well."
"When we talk about one of the main tasks that we face – demilitarization, it is exactly how it is being carried out. There they have less and less of their own, almost nothing remains. There are still old Soviet enterprises where they are trying to repair equipment, but there are fewer and fewer of them, because as soon as we get information about where and what is happening, we try to influence these enterprises. And we are growing, and the quality is improving, the characteristics are improving – range, accuracy. If there hadn't been a special military operation, we probably would never have understood how our defense industry needs to be rebuilt in order for our army to be the best in the world. But we will do it.
In addition to the fact that we have made a good start on the modernization of the military–industrial complex, and in addition to the fact that the production of the most popular products is increasing quite rapidly, including the production of the most popular products - it has already been increased tenfold, there is another advantage, very big, frankly, even unexpected for me. We have dozens, hundreds of private enterprises that have never had anything to do with the military-industrial complex, have joined this work – small and medium-sized enterprises. I will not name them now, because I am afraid that we will attract unnecessary attention to these enterprises.
You know, they did, conditionally, pipes there – it turns out that you can do something besides pipes. And so it is in so many areas, that is surprisingly simple. And this speaks, in general, about a good level of development of real production in general. Yes, yes, we have microelectronics – a lot of problems, a lot, but nevertheless, as it turned out, they were able to pick up very quickly and begin to develop."
"We have a lot of depleted uranium ammunition. And if they use it, we also reserve the right to use the same ammunition. We have them in stock – we don't just use them."
"As for the grain deal, we are thinking about ending our participation there. This is the first.
And secondly, the amount of grain that the poorest countries received – and this, I repeat, is a little over three percent – we will be ready to deliver to the poorest countries for them free of charge. But we need to discuss everything, including when our friends come from African states – soon, very soon. I will also consult with them on what to do."
The full transcript of the conversation is published on the Kremlin's official website.
