Putin says large number of volunteers is turning the tide of Ukraine war in Russia's favour
Recasts with Putin comments on war, changes media identifier
MOSCOW, Dec 16 (Reuters) -President Vladimir Putin said onMonday that the large number of men signing up for the Russian military voluntarily was turning the tide of the Ukraine war in Moscow's favour and said he hoped his army would keep advancing.
Putin, who said Russian forces had pushed the Ukrainian army out of nearly 200 settlements this year and held the initiative along the entire frontline, made the comments in a speech at the Defence Ministry at a time when his army is advancing at the fastest pace since 2022, according to open source maps.
"I would like to point out at once that the past year was a landmark year in achieving the goals of the special military operation (in Ukraine)," Putin told top generals.
"Russian troops have a firm grip on the strategic initiative along the entire line of contact. This year alone, 189 population centres have been liberated," he said.
He said roughly 430,000 Russians had signed army contracts this year, up from roughly 300,000 the year before, a factor he said had huge importance for Russia's war effort.
"This flow of volunteers is not ending. And thanks to this...we are seeing a turning point on the frontline," said Putin.
Andrei Belousov, Putin's defence minister, told the same audience that Russian troops had pushed Ukrainian forces out of almost 4,500 square kilometres (1,737 square miles) of territory this year and were advancing an average 30 square kilometres (11.5 square miles) per day.
Belousov also said that Russian military planning had to be ready for any scenario, including the most extreme such as a potential conflict with NATO in Europe in the next decade.
Putin in his own speech accusedthe West of pushing Russia to its "red lines" - situations it has publicly made clear it will not tolerate - and said Moscow had been forced to respond.
"They (Western leaders) are simply scaring their own population that we are going to attack someone there using the pretext of the mythical Russian threat," said Putin.
"The tactic is very simple: they push us to 'a red line', from which we can not retreat, we start to respond and then they immediately scare their population - in the old days it was with the Soviet threat and now it's with the Russian threat," said Putin.
He said thatRussia was watching the U.S. development and potential deployment of short and medium-range missiles with great concern andwould lift its own voluntary restrictions on the deployment of suchmissiles if the U.S. did decide to deploy such weapons.
Reporting by Dmitry Antonov and Vladimir Soldatkin; Writing by Andrew Osborn and Lucy Papachristou
Editing by Andrew Osborn
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