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The retired Russian colonel who said last week that Russia needs to “replenish” its losses in Ukraine has returned to state television with a new warning for the Kremlin – that the situation “will get worse” the longer the war drags on.
Russian Col. Mikhail Khodaryonok made the comment as Russia’s invasion – which has prompted Sweden and Finland to apply for NATO membership – has stretched into its 83rd day.
“The situation, frankly speaking, will get worse for us,” Khodaryonok said during a panel appearance with a pro-Kremlin TV journalist, adding that “you should not swallow informational tranquilizers,” according to Reuters.
Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting on oil industry development via a video conference at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, on Tuesday, May 17.
(Mikhail Metzel, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
RETIRED RUSSIAN COLONEL ADMITS PUTIN’S ARMY NEEDS TO ‘REPLENISH THE LOSSES’ SUFFERED IN UKRAINE
During the segment, Khodaryonok claimed Ukraine could mobilize one million people to fight in the war.
“A desire to protect one’s homeland in the sense that it exists in Ukraine, it really does exist there, they intend to fight until the last man,” he reportedly said.
A part of a destroyed tank and a burned vehicle sit in an area controlled by Russian-backed separatist forces in Mariupol, Ukraine, on Saturday, April 23.
(AP)
Khodaryonok also lamented the isolation that Russia is now suffering from as a result of launching the conflict.
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Road workers examine a destroyed Russian tank on the highway to Kyiv, Ukraine.
(AP/Efrem Lukatsky)
“Don’t wave rockets in the direction of Finland for goodness sake — it just looks rather funny,” Reuters quoted him as saying, taking a swipe at rhetoric coming from Russia in opposition of the Scandinavian country’s NATO bid.
“The main deficiency of our military-political position is that we are in full geopolitical solitude and — however we don’t want to admit it — practically the whole world is against us and we need to get out of this situation,” he also said.
