Russian President Vladimir Putin – © Alexey Danichev/POOL/TASS
The losses of Kiev forces since the beginning of the counteroffensive attempts have already exceeded 26,000 troops, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a meeting with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko.
Putin was responding to Lukashenko, who said that the irrecoverable Ukrainian losses since the beginning of the counteroffensive on June 4 amounted to 26,000 troops.
“More,” Putin pointed out, “Already more.”
The Russian president went on to reveal that foreign mercenaries fighting for Kiev had also sustained “significant losses” while taking part in the counteroffensive.
“Big [losses] because of their tactics,” Lukashenko added. “Yes,” Putin nodded, “because of their stupidity.”
“The public in the countries whose governments are sending people to the war zone today should also know what is happening there. And we will bring this to the people so that they can judge the actions of their rulers,” the Russian president promised.
Lukashenko also said at the meeting that more than 15 German-made Leopard 2 main battle tanks and more than 20 American-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicles had been destroyed in a single battle over the previous day, which is a record high number.
“I think never before have so many foreign tanks been destroyed in one day,” Putin said, agreeing with Lukashenko.
The Belarusian president added that “there is no [Ukrainian] counteroffensive.” Putin responded by saying that “there is one, it just failed.”
Also during the meeting, Lukashenko said that he was getting tense with Wagner fighters, who were sent to Belarus after starting a mutiny in Russia last month, because they wanted to “march on Warsaw”.
“Maybe I shouldn’t say it, but I will. The Wagner group has started to stress us: ‘We want to go to the West. Let us go.’ I said, why do you want to go to the West? ‘Well, to go on a tour to Warsaw, to Rzeszow’,” Lukashenko told Putin.
“I keep them in the center, as agreed, Belarus does not want to move them there, because their mood is bad. And, to their credit, they know what’s going on around the Union State. Well, it’s just a touch,” he said.
The special military operation in Ukraine brought Russia and Belarus closer than ever. This year, Russia deployed nuclear weapons and additional military capabilities in Belarus as Minsk began to face more threats not only from Ukraine, but also from Poland and other NATO states.
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