Russian President Vladimir Putin takes questions from the press and the public in an annual yearender event. Putin has told Russians that peace with Ukraine will only take place "when we achieve our objectives". This is his first major news conference since he launched his first full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The annual event did not take place last year. Putin began by addressing the importance of Russian sovereignty. "The existence of our country without sovereignty is impossible. It will simply not exist," he told state-controlled Channel One host Yekaterina Berezovskaya. Putin said Russia's economy is strong for a time of war. He revealed that Russia currently has a total of 617,000 troops fighting in Ukraine. He also claims that on top of 300,000 people called up for service last year, another 486,000 have signed up voluntarily as contract soldiers.
"The stream of our men who are ready to defend the interests of the homeland with weapons in their hands is not diminishing," he said. "Altogether there will be just under half a million men by the end of this year. Why do we need a mobilisation?"
Putin gave no number of military losses but disclosed that children of people within his "close" circle have fought for so-called private military companies, and a number of people "close to me" have died.
A classified US intelligence report estimated this week that 315,000 Russian soldiers had been either killed or wounded since the war began - which it said was almost 90% of Russia's military personnel at the start of the invasion.
#russia #putin #putinspeech #livenews #worldnews #englishnews
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