President Vladimir Putin downplayed Ukraine’s counteroffensive on Friday, warning with a smile that Russia would respond more forcefully if its forces came under more pressure, Reuters reported.

Speaking after the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in the Uzbek city of Samarkand, Putin called the invasion a necessary step to prevent what he called a Western plot to split Russia.

According to him, Moscow is in no hurry to enter Ukraine. And his goals remained unchanged.

“Kyiv authorities have announced that they have launched and are actively conducting a counteroffensive operation. Well, let’s see how it will develop and how it will end,” said Putin, smiling.

It was his first public comment on the defeat of his troops in the Kharkiv region in northeastern Ukraine a week ago, which drew extremely strong public criticism from Russian military observers.

In response, Russia launched strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure, including a dam in Kryvyi Rih, and Putin said those attacks could intensify.

“Recently, the Russian armed forces have carried out sensitive strikes. Let’s assume that this is a warning. If the situation develops in this way, then the response will be tougher,” he said.

Russia controls a fifth of Ukraine

Putin also said that Russia is gradually taking control of new territories of Ukraine.

Asked if what he calls a “special military operation” needs to be adjusted, he said: “The plan is not subject to adjustment.”

“In the General Staff, one thing is considered important, the other secondary – but the main task remains unchanged and is being carried out,” Putin said. “The main goal is the liberation of the entire territory of Donbas.”

Donbas consists of two predominantly Russian-speaking regions in eastern Ukraine – Luhansk, which is now fully controlled by Russia- and Kremlin-backed separatist forces, and Donetsk, which it controls partially.

However, Russia now occupies about a fifth of Ukraine as a whole, including most of the Zaporizhia and Kherson regions in the south, in addition to Crimea, which it annexed in 2014 and considers part of Russia.

Ukrainian troops are continuing a counteroffensive operation in eastern Ukraine, increasing pressure on Russian positions and lines of logistical support in eastern Kharkiv Oblast, northern Luhansk and eastern Donetsk Oblasts, according to the latest assessment of the Institute for the Study of War.

According to Russian sources, the Russians will be forced to withdraw from eastern Ukraine after Ukrainian forces continue their counteroffensive southwest of the city of Izyum, near the Liman and on the east bank of the Oskil River, but pushing the Ukrainian army too far east could make it difficult to hold their defensive lines, according to the American think tank.

On the other hand, Ukrainian special services report that the Russian occupiers are carrying out an emergency evacuation of their families from Crimea and southern Ukraine, and FSB employees are trying to secretly sell their houses on the peninsula in the face of a counteroffensive by Ukrainian troops. .

“The successful actions of the defenders of Ukraine force the so-called authorities of the temporarily occupied Crimea and the south of our country to urgently relocate their families to the territory of the Russian Federation,” the message of the Main Intelligence Directorate says.

Earlier this week, the United States assessed that Russia had largely ceded its captured territories near Kharkiv, and many retreating Russian soldiers had left Ukraine, crossing the border back into Russia, a senior US military official said on Monday.