Russian President Vladimir Putin has once again threatened to achieve “all set goals” with a large-scale military invasion of Ukraine, as Ukrainian authorities are “in no hurry to resolve this conflict through peaceful means.”
Putin visited the command post of the Joint Group of Forces, where he held a meeting with the leadership of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces and heard a report from its chief Valery Gerasimov, the Kremlin press service reported on Saturday, December 27. The report, in particular, talked about the capture of the cities of Mirnograd (Gerasimov called it Dimitrov) in the Donetsk region and Gulyaypole in the Zaporozhye region.
Speaking to the military, Putin again accused the “Kyiv authorities” of “launching large-scale military operations and starting a war” with Russia. The head of the Kremlin made a similar statement a few days earlier, speaking at the annual “Direct Line”.
Judging by the reports of the military and the “pace (of the offensive of the Russian Armed Forces. – Ord.) on the line of combat contact”, “our interest in the withdrawal of Ukrainian military formations from the territories they currently occupy is virtually zero. For completely different reasons,” Putin said. According to him, Russia “will solve all problems by armed means” if Ukraine “does not want to end things peacefully.” He made this statement on the eve of the visit of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky to the United States to discuss a peace agreement between Kiev and Moscow, scheduled for December 28.
Ukrainian Armed Forces: The seizure of Gulyai-Polye and Mirnograd by the Russian Armed Forces “is not confirmed by facts”
General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) in turn, he called the situation in Gulyai-Polye “complicated,” but emphasized that “a defensive operation is ongoing” in the city. In Mirnograd, the Ukrainian military claims, the Russian Armed Forces also “still fail to implement their plans to seize the Pokrovsko-Mirnograd agglomeration, so the weapon of disinformation is being used.”
The Ukrainian Armed Forces also called statements to the Russian side about the situation in Konstantinovka, Kupyansk and Pokrovsk “fiction”: “It is obvious that the lies of the Russians are primarily aimed at foreign partners and significantly intensified during the peace negotiations.”