Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Friday that the Ukrainian armed forces also attacked the Russian army in the Mykolaiv region, speaking of “significant losses” on the Ukrainian side, TASS reports.

“An attempt to attack the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Mykolaiv-Kryvorizka and other directions is ongoing, the enemy is suffering significant losses,” he said during a video conference.

Shoigu stated that the “attempted offensive” was planned by the office of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi in order to “create the illusion of the ability of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to conduct an offensive among Westerners.”

Ukraine has not yet announced any offensive actions on the territories captured by the Russians in the Mykolaiv region, it is very likely that Shoigu’s statements fall under the category of disinformation, and the “other directions” of the offensive that he speaks of are actually located in Kherson, where the Ukrainians launched a counterattack on the fifth day.

Some Russian mass media even quoted his statements regarding the Kherson counteroffensive, despite assurances from the Russian Defense Ministry as early as Monday that it had failed.

For example, one of the most popular news sites in Russia, Lenta, publishes headlines that “Shoigu called the target of Kyiv’s southern counteroffensive.”

Atypical appearance of Serhiy Shoigu in public

However, the Southern Operational Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported on Friday morning that an ammunition depot in Melitopol was destroyed at night, probably the purpose of this attack was to prevent the replenishment of Kherson’s invasion forces from the eastern direction of the theater of operations.

Friday’s comments by Serhiy Shoigu are all the more remarkable because he rarely makes announcements about the development of hostilities in Ukraine, his daily press briefings are supported by Lieutenant General Ihor Konashenkov, the spokesman for the Ministry of Defense in Moscow.

Shoigu’s last public statements about the development of the “special military operation” appear to have been made in July, when the Russian defense minister personally informed Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin of the fall of Lysyansk, the last major Ukrainian-controlled urban center in Ukraine. Luhansk region

An investigation published in August by journalists from iStories, a Russian investigative website that operates outside the country to circumvent Kremlin-imposed censorship, said the Russian president had lost confidence in Shoigu, once one of his most trusted confidants advisors

Is the Russian Defense Minister trying to return the favor of Vladimir Putin?

Sources from the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces told iSories that after the failure of the blitzkrieg strategy, which envisaged the conquest of Ukraine in a very short time, Putin lost confidence in the military capabilities of Shoigu, who is a civilian engineer by education and has no training in military academies.

He was promoted to general during his tenure as Minister of Emergency Situations, a position he held for more than a decade from 1991 to 2012.

After the withdrawal of Russian troops from Kiev, Putin allegedly tried to personally transfer the army, but refused, and now, picking over Shoigu’s head, consults directly with military commanders participating in hostilities, although Shoigu is obviously the head of the Russian army.

Russian investigative journalists also noted that the FSB not only misinformed Putin about the situation in Ukraine before the war, but also that Shoigu promised him to conquer the country with contract soldiers, without general mobilization and in the shortest possible time. possible time

Follow the latest events of the 191st day of the war in Ukraine LIVETEXT on HOTNEWS.RO. You can also see the latest information on the counteroffensive of Ukrainian troops in the Kherson region here:

• VIDEO Kherson counteroffensive, day 5: Ukrainians threw Bayraktar TB2 drones into battle and bombed Melitopol / Russians will try to ferry reinforcements through Crimea