A Russian state media war correspondent found himself in an awkward situation when he accidentally revealed the scale of their losses in Ukraine. He basically admitted a “huge number of people” have died. The correspondent in question is Alexander Sladkov, who while speaking to the Kremlin-run Rossiya 1 news channel from the Donbas said how effective Ukraine’s counter-offensive has been.
He quickly corrected himself after realising what he had just said and told the propaganda channel that Russia is having “great successes”. However, he did not spell out the details.
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The Daily Mail quoted Sladkov as saying, “People here [in the Donbas] are waiting for us to get started. For us to hit them so hard that they end up on their backsides. That’s to say, a knockout! It’s very difficult to win on points.”
“We’re losing a huge number of people, we have wounded… we’re having… great successes!”
“We’re having great successes but we’re not… well now we’ve used long-range aviation, we’ve dealt serious damage to their energy system, but again we didn’t finish it off.”
Russia has reportedly seen major losses in the past few days with Ukraine claiming that the opposition troops have left their posts. However, Moscow has described its troop withdrawal in north-eastern Kharkiv amid Ukraine’s push as a “regrouping” with the aim of focusing on the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.
Ukraine has asserted that Russian troops have surrendered en masse following a rapid Ukrainian counter-attack which continues to gain ground.
(With inputs from agencies)
