WhatsNew2Day – Latest News And Breaking Headlines
Vladimir Putin will hold his first marathon year-end press conference today since ordering the invasion of Ukraine, and the cocky Russian president feels the tide turning in his favor almost two years into the grueling conflict.
The despot will answer questions from journalists and viewers during the hours-long marathon, a week after he announced that he will run in the presidential elections in May, which will keep him in the Kremlin until at least 2030.
The Russian leader will “summarize the results of the year,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, telling reporters: “It will be a combined format of the Hotline and the president’s final press conference.”
Direct Line is a television program with carefully choreographed calls that Putin has presented annually – with some exceptions – since 2001.
But the event was canceled last year amid a troubled operation in Ukraine that saw kyiv reclaim swaths of its territory from Russia in the east and south.
Vladimir Putin will hold his first marathon year-end press conference today since ordering the invasion of Ukraine, and the cocky Russian president (seen speaking Tuesday) feels the tide turning in his favor nearly two years into the grueling conflict.
Ukraine’s strong resistance and support from its allies surprised observers around the world and in Moscow, where many expected to conquer kyiv within a few days.
But almost two years after his offensive, Putin may be sensing that his fortunes are reviving and that the balance may be tipping in Russia’s favor.
Ukraine’s latest counteroffensive failed to break through heavily entrenched Russian lines and support from its allies is eroding. Neither side has made significant progress on the battlefield recently, a situation that suits Putin for now.
Meanwhile, Russia has been able to secure the support of its own allies.
While Ukraine’s European and North American allies have strongly condemned Russia and imposed sanctions, others – such as China – have backed Moscow.
Other powerful nations, such as India, have avoided criticizing Russia for its actions in Ukraine.
During a visit to Washington this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky failed to overcome Republican opposition in Congress to passage of a new $60 billion aid package.
And the Russian economy has resisted Western sanctions aimed at isolating Russia, although the economy’s long-term resilience remains uncertain.
Moscow can still sustain its war effort through oil sales, something Putin discussed during a trip this month to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, where he was received with full honors.
In any case, Putin’s election campaign, which he launched last week, is unlikely to be forced to address the real economic and human costs of the offensive.
Putin has largely limited his interaction with foreign media since fighting began in Ukraine, but international journalists were invited this year.
During Thursday’s event, he is expected to address domestic and international political issues, and repeat his usual rhetoric distorting Ukraine’s past.
Russian callers have already submitted more than 1.5 million requests, and Russian state news agencies reported that most of the callers’ questions relate to the conflict in Ukraine, housing and public services.
Putin will also set out his ambitions for the March 17 elections that will allow him to extend his grip on power for decades into the 2030s.
There is no doubt about the result, since the majority of the opposition is in exile or behind bars. Putin’s most prominent rival, Alexei Navalny, is currently serving a 19-year prison sentence on political charges.
And the Kremlin has intensified its crackdown on dissent since the attack on Ukraine. Thousands of people have been arrested and imprisoned over protests, and many thousands more have fled the country for fear of being called upon to fight.
Two years after his offensive, Putin may be sensing that his fortunes are reviving in Ukraine and that the balance may be tipping in Russia’s favor. Pictured: Ukrainian soldiers drive a tank into position near the town of Bakhmut, Donetsk region, December 13, 2023.
However, Russia has still been affected by the conflict: Moscow’s armies have suffered heavy losses and the economy has weakened under the pressure of sanctions.
According to US intelligence, Putin has lost nearly 90 percent of his pre-invasion military, with 315,000 troops killed or wounded since the war began.
A declassified US intelligence report assessed that Moscow’s losses in personnel and armored vehicles to the Ukrainian military have set back Russia’s military modernization by 18 years, a source familiar with the intelligence said on Tuesday.
Russia has also lost nearly two-thirds of its tank force, or 2,200 of the 3,500 it had before the invasion, the congressional source said.
While it is well known that Putin’s forces have suffered enormous losses in Ukraine, the assessment sheds new light on the extent of those setbacks.
Many Russians assumed that their much larger army would achieve victory in Ukraine in a matter of days, overthrow the government in kyiv and install a puppet administration.
Instead, after reaching the limits of kyiv in the first month of the war, Russian forces were pushed eastward and suffered setback after setback.
Now, they find themselves in a grueling war being fought along a frontline stretching hundreds of miles against a determined Ukraine that has exposed the weaknesses of the Russian military once considered one of the strongest in the world.
However, analysts say the situation currently suits Russia, as Moscow’s armies control about 20 percent of Ukrainian territory.
It is hoped that Russia will be able to replenish its forces with new recruits and manufacture weapons faster than the West can provide them to Ukraine.
But Putin’s press conference also comes after it was revealed that his country’s economy has been hit since the start of the conflict.
The war has raised domestic prices and is forcing Moscow to devote a third of its budget to defense, Britain’s Financial Times reported Thursday, citing a draft from the U.S. Treasury Department.
Russia’s economy would have expanded more than 5 percent if Putin had not launched war in Ukraine, the newspaper reported, citing Rachel Lyngaas, the department’s chief sanctions economist.
Lyngaas added that the country was underperforming other energy exporters, including the United States.
People with bags walk past a damaged apartment building in the Ukrainian capital of kyiv after a Russian missile attack on December 13.
The US Treasury Department did not respond to a request for comment from the Reuters news agency.
Moscow was spending more than $100 billion, or nearly a third of its total defense spending in 2023, according to the Financial Times report.
The backbone of the Russian economy – oil and gas revenues – took a hit this year, although there has been a slight recovery in recent months as oil prices firmed.
Furthermore, Western sanctions on Russia’s oil trade have not had as large an impact as initially predicted.
As Putin speaks on Thursday, EU leaders will work to agree a massive aid package and begin talks on Ukraine’s membership.
However, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban threatened to veto the measure.
kyiv is desperately seeking to improve the narrative after Zelensky failed to win over Republican lawmakers in Washington.
But Orban, Russia’s closest ally in the European Union, is hampering Ukraine’s hopes of receiving 50 billion euros in financial aid and moving toward its goal of one day joining the bloc.
Critics have accused Orban of holding Kiev’s survival hostage in a bid to force Brussels to release billions of euros of EU funds frozen over a dispute over the rule of law.
In what some saw as a last-minute concession, the European Commission, the EU executive, agreed on Wednesday to unlock 10 billion euros of that cash.
But €21 billion remains out of Orban’s reach and it was far from clear that the gesture would avoid a damaging dispute at the summit.
Members of the pro-Ukrainian Russian Ethnic Siberian Battalion practice at military training near kyiv, Ukraine, on Wednesday, December 13.
The right-wing veteran warned that starting accession talks with Ukraine would be a “terrible mistake” and that he would not budge.
Zelensky responded that Orban had “no reason” to stop kyiv from moving towards EU membership and said his country could not beat Russia without more support.
It comes after Russia fired a new wave of missiles at kyiv on Wednesday, wounding dozens of people in the most damaging attack on the capital in months.
Another attack early on Thursday wounded another 11 people in the southern Odessa region, emergency services said.