Putin admits Russia has suffered losses and is lacking modern weapons

Russian President Vladimir Putin has acknowledged the country’s military forces have suffered significant losses while fighting against Ukraine in a rare admission that the special military operation might not be going as well as leaders in Moscow had hoped. 

“In recent days, we have seen significant losses in Ukraine, they exceed the classical figure,” Putin explained in a video posted by the Kremlin on the state of the Ukrainian counter-offensive according to a translation that was provided by The Daily Beast.  

Putin explained that the Russian Armed Forces were dealing with significant problems when it came to artillery and said the country did not have enough modern systems at the moment, but said defense contractors were working to remedy the problem quickly. 

“Yes, we still do not have enough of these modern weapons, but the defense industry, the country's military-industrial complex is developing rapidly,” Putin explained. 

Newsweek noted that Putin didn’t elaborate further on the modern weapons his forces were lacking but the Managing Editor of Special Operation Forces Report told the news outlet that it was clear the Russian President was running low on his modern missile stocks.  

“Specifically, they're running short on main battle tanks and ballistic missiles," McCardle told Newsweek. "This is evidenced by the fact that they are using so many glider bombs today,” adding that they still had cruise missiles but that they were expensive to fire. 

“They still have cruise missiles, but these, of course, are very expensive, and they just can't be firing them off at will,” McCardle said, also noting that it was out of character for Putin to admit that the Russian Armed Forces were running low on some equipment. 

The Daily Beast’s Shannon Vavra wrote that Putin’s admission was a “stark departure” from the Kremlin’s previous stance on the war, which painted the invasion as a success throughout the conflict despite the growing understanding that things had gone very wrong. 

Why Putin would publically announce Russia was having issues is not known. But he could be trying to distance himself from the war, or it could be part of the Kremlin’s plan “to right-size expectations within Russia” about the war’s outcome as The Daily Beast reported.

In January, Putin claimed the special military operation in Ukraine was going well in an interview with Rossiya 1 just after Russian forces had captured the city of Soledar. 

"The dynamic is positive," Putin told the state television station about Soledar's capture according to a translation from Reuters. "Everything is developing within the framework of the plan of the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff," Russia’s President added. 

"And I hope that our fighters will please us even more with the results of their combat," Putin said. Several settlements were later captured in the months that followed as well as the long-coveted major city of Bakhmut, which cost Russia’s Wagner Group dearly. 

Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed 20,000 of his mercenary soldiers died taking the city according to Time Magazine while official American estimates of casualty figures pegged total Russian deaths and injuries at roughly 100,000 Reuters reported. 

However, such large numbers of dead and wounded haven’t deterred Putin or his allies in Moscow from pressing on. In his address on Ukraine’s counteroffensive, the Russian President said Ukrainian forces were not doing well but didn’t rule out a possible victory. 

“It can be stated that all counteroffensive attempts made so far have failed, but the offensive potential of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has still been preserved,” Putin explained. But Ukrainian officials have said the offensive has made good progress.  

On June 12th, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar claimed the country’s military had retaken at least four villages in eastern Donetsk in several messages on her official Telegram channel, writing in one post that “we liberate all Ukrainian land.”