Putin brags about pace of Russian offensive in Ukraine's east 

Russian leader Vladimir Putin has said that Russian occupation forces are advancing in Ukraine's east at a significant pace and noted that it was not in metres but in kilometres. Source: RIA Novosti, a Kremlin-aligned Russian news outlet  Details: During an open lesson with Russian schoolchildren, Putin began to boast that "now it's not about moving 200 to 300 metres forward" in Donbas.

He claimed that such a pace of advance had not been seen for a long time. "The Russian Armed Forces are now capturing not 200 to 300 metres daily, but square kilometres," Putin said.

Putin also called the Ukrainian Armed Forces' operation in Russia's Kursk Oblast a "provocation" and an attempt to stop Russia's offensive in Donbas, which has supposedly failed.

Background:

• On 1 September, Oleksandr Syrskyi, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, reported that the situation was difficult in the area of the Russians' main offensive, in Donetsk Oblast.

  Nonetheless, he said that all necessary decisions at all levels are being made without delay.

• The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported on 2 September that a total of 182 combat clashes had taken place on the front line over the past 24 hours alone, with 63 Russian assaults occurring on the Pokrovsk front.
• Michael Clarke, visiting professor in defence studies at King's College London, forecast that Russian troops could capture the whole of Donetsk Oblast and threaten Dnipropetrovsk Oblast in the spring of 2025.

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