He confirmed that he did not regret launching the "military operation" in Ukraine

Putin: The war is a watershed moment...and Russia is standing up to Western hegemony

During Putin's meeting with the mothers of Russian soldiers.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed that he had no regrets about launching Russia's "special military operation" in Ukraine, describing the war as "a watershed moment when Russia finally stood up to arrogant Western hegemony after decades of humiliation in the years after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991." .

Russian President Vladimir Putin met yesterday with 17 mothers of Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine, and told those who lost children in the war that he and the entire Russian leadership share their pain.

Russia has sent hundreds of thousands of soldiers to fight in Ukraine, including some of the more than 300,000 reservists called up as part of the mobilization Putin announced last September.

Putin met with the mothers at his residence in the Novo-Ogaryovo region outside Moscow on the occasion of the Russian Mother's Day.

Putin said he understood the anxiety and fear of soldiers' mothers and the pain of those who lost their sons in Ukraine.

He continued, "I would like you to know that I personally and the rest of the country's leadership feel your pain."

He added, "We realize that nothing can compensate for the loss of a son, especially for a mother... We share this pain with you."

The Russian president paid tribute to the sons of present mothers who defend what he called "Novorossiya," which means "New Russia," an expression from the era of the tsarist empire used by Russian nationalists to describe the part of southern and eastern Ukraine that Russia now claims.

Putin said he sometimes speaks on the phone with Russian soldiers at the front and their words make them heroes in his eyes.

Mothers, coming from all over Russia and from various ethnic groups, expressed their appreciation for his leadership and wished him well, before speaking of their sons who had fought or died valiantly in service of a noble cause.

The last time Russia disclosed its losses was on September 21, when Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that 5,937 Russian servicemen had been killed.

But this number is much lower than most international estimates.

The General Command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces stated in a report that the Ukrainian Armed Forces had killed, since February 24 until yesterday, about 86,710 Russian soldiers, including 560 soldiers in the past 24 hours.

The Ukrainian news agency "Ukrinform" quoted the leadership as saying that the total combat losses incurred by the Russian forces include 2,901 tanks, 5,848 armored combat vehicles, 1,896 artillery systems, 395 multiple launch rocket systems and 209 air defense systems, and a total of 531 Russian cruise missiles were shot down. .

In addition, the Ukrainian government began evacuating civilians from the city of Kherson in the south of the country, which Ukrainian forces were able to finally regain control of after Russian forces controlled it for several months. The Ukrainian Ministry of Infrastructure said that 100 people were transported by train to Khmelnitsky in western Ukraine. Among them are 26 children and six patients.

Under pressure from the Ukrainian counter-strikes, the Russian forces withdrew from Kherson in mid-November, but the Russians maintain positions on the other bank of the Dnipro River and fire artillery from there.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky criticized Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko for what he said was his poor performance in setting up emergency shelters to help those without electricity and heat after the Russian attacks, in a rare public spat between Ukraine's leaders.

Zelensky noted that local authorities did not perform well in all cities.

There are many complaints in Kyiv in particular, and he also explained that more than six million homes in Ukraine were affected by power outages after two days of heavy Russian strikes, and later electricity services began to gradually return.

In a related context, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced yesterday the release of nine prisoners of war as part of a prisoner exchange with Ukraine.

 The Ukrainian army announces the killing of 86,000 Russian soldiers since February 24.

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