The Russian president made the remarks as he accepted the credentials of Lynne Tracy in a ceremony. "They must see and feel that all our great country stands behind them and we will do everything to protect them," Mr Putin said in televised remarks at the meeting. Mr Putin urged officials to strengthen efforts to fully integrate the four regions into Russia and protect local residents from Ukrainian attacks. Several Moscow-appointed officials in the newly incorporated provinces, which are still recognised internationally as Ukrainian, have been killed and wounded in a slew of bombings and other attacks. He noted that the four provinces he illegally annexed last year - Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia - have faced Ukrainian shelling and acts of sabotage aimed at scaring the local population, adding that the authorities must act "harshly and effectively to ensure control over the situation." “If Ukraine is to prevail with a spring counter offensive and exploit the Western weapons, it's going to have to produce a really effective punch this springtime and it will need a lot of troops to do that.”ĭuring a call with members of his security council, the Russian president said: "There are reasons to believe that the capabilities of third countries, Western special services, have been involved in preparation of acts of sabotage and terror attacks." “So, what you’d have to conclude from that is that Mr Putin's objectives are to secure Crimea and keep the Donbas. “If you look down in Crimea they are actually reinforcing their defences down there but up in Bakhmut and in the Donbas its full steam ahead. “Russia will know that there is going to be a spring offensive at some point so what they should be doing is trying to preserve their military power for that. Going on to discuss the likely spring offensive he said: “What we can surmise from a military standpoint is that Bakhmut continues to be a highly attritional battle. He said that this was part of a European effort to "step up" adding: "You’ve got the US presidential elections on the horizon and although America will still provide the lion's share of military and financial support to Ukraine there's a yawning need for the Europeans to step up and provide some leadership and that’s what Poland seems to be trying to do." "In terms of hardware what they've given Ukriane is a whole load of tanks, they’ve had drones, even fighter jets. "If you look on a map, you’ve got Belarus which is largely a Russian puppet regime and you’ve got Poland next which is why 80% of Poles are really keen to arm Ukraine. Sky News military analyst Sean Bell said: "For geographical and historical reasons Poland will be very nervous about what Mr Putin does next.
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