Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Ukraine will suffer “huge losses”, far greater than his own country, during the offensive launched by Kiev this summer, TASS reports.

“This (without a counteroffensive) has been going on since June 4. So far there are no results, only huge losses [ale Ucrainei]Putin said in an interview with China Media Corporation before visiting Beijing for the Belt and Road conference, an infrastructure project that has seen China expand its influence in the world over the past decade.

“Losses [ucrainenilor] they’re just huge, about 8 to one if we’re going to count [la cele rusești]”, the head of the Kremlin emphasized in an interview with the Chinese mass media.

More interestingly, however, Putin said that the Ukrainian offensive was supposed to begin on June 4, when there was a lot of conflicting information about whether it would begin or not.

On June 9, Putin announced that the Ukrainian offensive had begun, but had already failed.

“It is safe to say that this offensive has begun. This is confirmed by the use of strategic reserves of the Ukrainian army,” he said at the time in the intervention in Sochi, while the Ukrainian army and political leadership in Kyiv still maintained “informational silence” about the attack.

In June, Ukraine confirmed the start of its offensive

A day after Putin’s comments, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reluctantly confirmed that Ukraine had indeed launched its long-awaited offensive to liberate territories occupied by the Russian military last year.

At a press conference in Kyiv, Zelenskyy shrugged disdainfully at a request to comment on the comments of the Kremlin head, however, noting that “counteroffensive and defensive actions are underway in Ukraine, but I will not say in detail at what stage this will be found out.”

“Everyone is in a good mood. Give it to Putin,” he said at a press conference together with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who was in Kyiv.

Vladimir Putin also spoke last month about the alleged losses Ukraine recorded during the offensive, citing a series of hallucinatory figures during one of his speeches at the Eastern Economic Forum, which was held in Vladivostok between September 10 and 13.

Putin spoke about the devastating losses of the Ukrainian army

“Ukraine is conducting a so-called counteroffensive. Of course, there are no results. Now we will not say whether it was a failure or not, but there are no results, but there were losses. Significant losses. Since the beginning of this counteroffensive, losses in personnel amount to 71,500 people,” Putin said at the economic forum in Vladivostok.

He added that the Ukrainian army has already lost 543 tanks and almost 18,000 units of armored vehicles of various models, and this number is so large that it is not entirely clear whether it is Ukraine’s losses during the June offensive or since the beginning of the war.

At the time, the Kremlin leader also said that Ukraine would likely be ready to resume peace talks only after resources were exhausted, and said Kyiv would use any possible ceasefire to rearm with the help of its Western partners.

“I have the impression that they want to bite off as much as possible [teritoriu] then they can, when their resources are close to zero, achieve a cessation of hostilities and enter into negotiations to renew their resources and regain combat capability.”

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