Putin claims Ukraine counter-offensive is failing

Russian President Vladimir Putin claims that Ukraine's counter-offensive has been unsuccessful, with its service suffering large losses.

Speaking astatine a gathering of warfare correspondents, helium said that Kyiv's losses were approaching a "catastrophic" level.

That has not been verified, and Ukrainian President Zelensky has denied the counter-offensive is failing.

"There is question forward," helium said successful his nightly video address.

He thanked Ukrainian troops for "every measurement and each metre of Ukrainian onshore that is being liberated from Russian evil".

This was echoed by Valery Zaluzhny, the commander-in-chief of the country's equipped forces, who wrote connected Telegram determination had been "some successes, we are implementing our plans, moving forward".

Kyiv's counter-offensive is successful its aboriginal stages, and humble gains person been made successful the eastbound Donetsk and south-eastern Zaporizhzhia regions. Mr Zelensky has besides claimed advances successful Bakhmut.

But the concern is not arsenic clear-cut than the triumphant claims of liberation which came from Kyiv earlier this week.

Nato main Jens Stoltenberg said that portion it was inactive "early days", advancement was being made successful repelling Russian troops.

"What we bash cognize is that the much onshore that Ukrainians are capable to liberate, the stronger manus they volition person astatine the negotiating table," helium told US President Joe Biden astatine a White House meeting.

Without providing evidence, Mr Putin said the Ukrainians had mislaid implicit 160 tanks portion Russia had mislaid 54. He besides suggested Ukraine's unit losses were 10 times greater than Russia's - insisting Kyiv had not succeeded "in immoderate of the sectors".

His comments were dismissed by a US official, who anonymously told the AP quality bureau they were "not accurate" and warned against taking Moscow's nationalist assessments seriously.

Although astir of Mr Putin's statements during his gathering with warfare correspondents were typically self-congratulatory, helium did admit that authorities successful Moscow could person amended anticipated recent cross-border attacks into Russia from Ukraine.

Mr Putin besides suggested that Russia was abbreviated of "high-precision ammunition, communications equipment, aircraft, drones, and truthful on" - contempt limb accumulation having accrued implicit the past year.

Ukraine has had longstanding concerns astir Russia's quality to physique weaponry.

On Tuesday, Mr Zelensky again called for tougher sanctions to halt the travel of limb components, immoderate of which helium said were being manufactured by Ukraine's spouse countries.

He said that Russia was utilizing specified components to physique the benignant of missiles that connected Tuesday struck an flat gathering and warehouses successful Kryvyi Rih, sidesplitting 11 radical and wounding dozens more.

On the aforesaid day, the US announced it would nonstop a caller subject assistance bundle to Ukraine worthy $325 million.

Separately, Belarusian person Alexander Lukashenko suggested his state was receiving atomic weapons from Russia that were "three times much powerful" than the atomic bombs utilized successful Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

He did not accidental whether they had already received the weapons oregon not, but claimed their deployment to Minsk was indispensable to deter imaginable aggression.

Earlier this month, Russia said it would deploy tactical atomic weapons connected Belarusian ungraded from July - seen arsenic a informing to the West, which was expanding its subject enactment for Ukraine.