Putin claims Ukraine invasion going as planned

Russian President Vladimir Putin in a brief address to the country pushed the bogus claim Thursday that his country is “at war with neo-Nazis” in neighboring Ukraine and insisted that the Russian military’s week-old invasion is unfolding according to plan.

“The special military operation is going strictly according to schedule, according to plan,” Mr. Putin said at the start of a meeting in Moscow with his security council, Agence France-Presse reported. That comes as U.S. officials and private military analysts say Russia’s offensive has gone much slower than predicted in the face of a determined resistance from Ukrainian forces.

The Russian president added that “we are at war with neo-Nazis,” reiterating a false claim he’d made at the start of the invasion that one aim of the decision to invade was the “de-nazification” of Ukraine’s leadership under President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Western analysts have criticized Mr. Putin for deliberately promoting what they said was deliberate disinformation about Mr. Zelenskyy, who is Jewish.

The Russian president made the neo-Nazi claim again Thursday before adding: “I will never give up on my conviction that Russians and Ukrainians are one people.”

Mr. Putin separately praised Russian forces for acting “courageously, like real heroes.” He also announced the Kremlin will pay compensation to families of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine.
Russia reported Wednesday that 498 of its troops had been killed since the invasion began last week. While the actual number is not yet clear, Ukrainian officials have reported it is far higher.

Mr. Putin also held a lengthy phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron, who had tried to broker a diplomatic compromise between Moscow and Kyiv before Mr. Putin’s decision last week to invade.

An aide told AFP that Mr. Macron got “nothing that could reassure us” from Mr. Putin from the call and that “the worst is to come” in the fighting.

The Kremlin in its readout of the call said Mr. Putin told Mr. Macron that “Russia intends to continue the uncompromising fight against militants of nationalist armed groups.”