Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a virtual meeting on economic issues in Moscow on Sept. 12. Photo: Gavril Grigorov/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images
Despite facing a rapidly advancing Ukrainian counter-offensive, the Kremlin insisted on Monday that Russia will continue to wage its war in Ukraine until all its military goals have been achieved.
The big picture: In one of its greatest setbacks of the war so far, Russian troops over the weekend were forced to withdraw from the areas surrounding Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, as Ukrainian troops pushed on into the region's northern, southern and eastern flanks.
- Ukraine's military chief Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhnyi announced on Sunday that Ukraine had recaptured 3,000 square kilometers (1,158 square miles) of territory since the start of the month.
- Ukraine's military announced on Monday that it had reclaimed roughly 500 square kilometers of territory in the Kherson region of southern Ukraine, the Financial Times reported.
What they're saying: Russia's so-called special military operation "will continue until all the goals that were originally set are achieved," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters Monday, the Financial Times reported.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin "is in constant, round-the-clock communication with the minister of defense, and with all the military commanders," Peskov added.
- Peskov evaded a question about whether Putin still had confidence in his military leaders in light of the Ukrainian offensive, per Reuters.
Putin himself appeared on television later Monday to chair a meeting on the economy but did not acknowledge the military setbacks.
- Instead, he touted Russia's response to Western sanctions. "The economic blitzkrieg tactics, the onslaught they were counting on, did not work — this is already obvious to everyone, and to them too," he said, according to Reuters.