One of Vladimir Putin’s closest European allies says that the leader of Russia is healthy and sane and in better shape than ever. The statement came on the same day that Putin is said to have fired a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile into Ukraine. Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian president who has been called the last dictator of Europe, said that Putin’s mental health was not good in an interview with the Japanese TV channel TBS. Boris Johnson, the British Prime Minister, said that the increasingly desperate leader, who hasn’t made any major progress in Ukraine, was being irrational. Mark Rutte, the Dutch Prime Minister, said that he was totally paranoid.
An aide to jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny said today that Putin had made a huge mistake, predicting that the unpopular war and its economic consequences would lead to the demise of his regime in five years. That’s what Lukashenko told his Japanese interviewer:
‘The West and you should get this stupidity, this fiction out of your heads. It’s not true. Putin is in the best shape of his life.’ You can tell that this person is sane, healthy, and in good shape because he’s an athlete”
With Volodymyr Zelensky as Ukraine’s new president, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been stymied for the fourth week. Putin is angry about the slow pace of his campaign; The campaign which he had hoped to finish in a few days because his country has more military power than the former Soviet state, intelligence sources say. At least eight generals have been fired since the war began, the sources say. In an interview, Lukashenko, who let Russia use his country as a staging ground for the Ukraine invasion on February 24; He said that he and Putin were friends. He also said that he was sad about the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991. Putin has talked about this topic a lot, especially before the invasion; when he said that Ukraine was a fake country that was a part of Russian history and culture.
Some think Putin made a mistake by going to war with his western neighbor. They think he didn’t think about how unpopular it would be back home. One aide to jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny thinks it will be Putin’s downfall for Russia. Vladimir Ashurkov, the head of Mr Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation; They told the Independent that the war would lead to a democratic uprising in his country. As time goes on, people will become more and more disillusioned with the way things work.
It comes after Russia used its new hypersonic missile; known as the Kinzhal, for the first time during its attack on Ukraine; a military spokesman said today. It reportedly destroyed an underground warehouse in the western Ivano-Frankivsk region; that held Ukrainian missiles and ammunition. The bodies of Russian soldiers who died in Ukraine are on the move; from Belarus to Russia by train and plane in the middle of the night; so that no one will see them. This is to keep them from getting attention. In a video from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, military ambulances drive through the Belarusian city of Homel in early March. Employees at the region’s clinical hospital say more than 2,500 bodies moved to Russia on March 13.
U.S. intelligence has said that about 7,000 Russian troops died; Since February 24, but Ukraine’s military says that more than 14,000 died; Moscow’s Defense Ministry says that less than 500 died too, in battle People in Ukraine and the West say that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine isn’t going very well because of Ukraine’s fierce resistance, bad planning, and low morale for Russian troops. US intelligence says that 7,000 Russian troops; including four generals, died. That’s more than the number of American troops killed in Iraq or Afghanistan; which were 4,825 and 3,576, respectively. Between 14,000 and 21,000 troops were injured in the fighting.
