Ukraine is still healing its wounds following the Russian missile attacks on Monday. Damage to be also deplored on the electricity network while the country is experiencing its first major cold snap.
Vladimir Putin spoke at a televised meeting on Wednesday afternoon. He said the fighting in Ukraine could still go on for a long time while adding that he saw no need to mobilize additional troops at the moment. “Russia has deployed in Ukraine nearly half of the men recruited during the partial mobilization of reservists, or about 150,000 soldiers“. The Russian president, however, boasted of “significant results” in reference to the annexation he claims of four Ukrainian regions. Finally, he implied that Russia would not use nuclear weapons first, but only “in response“to a possible enemy strike of this type on its territory.
For its part, NATO believes that Moscow’s strategy would be to “freeze” the fighting before an offensive in the spring. “What we are seeing now is that Russia is trying to impose some kind of freeze on this war, at least for a short time, so that it can regroup, repair, recover and then try to launch a bigger offensive next spring“, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said at a public event organized by the British daily Financial Times.