Putin's 'in better shape than EVER': Lukashenko says the West needs to get the 'stupid fiction out of its heads' that Kremlin leader is acting 'irrational' over Ukraine, but jailed opposition leader's aide says invasion will end regime 'within five years'
- Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko insisted idea that Vladimir Putin is mad or irrational is 'stupidity'
- Comes after Boris Johnson suggested Russian president is being 'irrational' over his invasion of Ukraine
- Meanwhile corpses of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine are being moved from Belarus in the dead of night
- Video shows military ambulances driving through the Belarusian city of Homel in early March
By LAURENCE DOLLIMORE and JACK WRIGHT FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 06:17 AEDT, 20 March 2022 | UPDATED: 07:49 AEDT, 20 March 2022
Warring Vladimir Putin is healthy, sane and 'in better shape than ever', his closest European ally has claimed - on the same day he reportedly fired a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile in Ukraine, in a terrifying first.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko - dubbed the last dictator of Europe - made the assessment of Putin's mental health during an interview with Japanese television channel TBS.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had suggested the growingly desperate leader - who has yet to make any significant inroads in Ukraine - is being 'irrational', while Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte described him as 'totally paranoid'.
Meanwhile, an aide to jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny today suggested Putin had massively miscalculated, predicting the 'unpopular' war and its economic consequences would lead to the 'demise' of his regime within five years.
But insisting the 69-year-old is in top condition, Lukashenko told his Japanese interviewer: 'The West, and you, should get this stupidity, this fiction out of your heads.
'Putin is absolutely fit, he's in better shape than ever ... This is a completely sane, healthy person, physically healthy - he's an athlete.'
'As they say here - he'll catch a cold at all our funerals.'
Russia's invasion of Ukraine, now in its fourth week, continues to stall in the face of a fierce Ukrainian resistance led by comedian-turned-president Volodymyr Zelensky.
Putin is said to be furious at the slow pace of his campaign, which he had hoped to end within days given his country's military superiority - on paper at least - and has fired at least eight generals since waging war on the former Soviet state, intelligence sources claim.
Alexander Lukashenko (pictured) claims Vladimir Putin is in 'better shape than ever' amid claims the Russian president is acting irrationally over his Ukraine invasion
Boris Johnson suggested the growingly desperate leader - who has yet to make any significant inroads in Ukraine - is being 'irrational', while Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte described him as 'totally paranoid'. (Pictured: Vladimir Putin delivering a speech to a packed stadium in Moscow on Friday)
Video posted by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty shows military ambulances driving through the Belarusian city of Homel, with employees at the region's clinical hospital alleging more than 2,500 bodies have been shipped back to Russia
An aide to jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny (pictured) today suggested Putin had massively miscalculated, predicting the 'unpopular' war and its economic consequences would lead to the 'demise' of his regime within five years.
In his interview, Lukashenko - who allowed Russia to use his country as a staging post for the Ukraine invasion on February 24 - boasted that he and Putin were 'friends' as he bemoaned the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The theme is one Putin has frequently discussed, not least when he suggested in speeches before the invasion that Ukraine was an artificial construct and an 'inalienable part' of Russian history and culture.
'The collapse of the Soviet Union is a tragedy,' Lukashenko said.
'If the Soviet Union had survived to this day, we could have avoided all sorts of conflicts in the world...
'While the USSR existed, the world was multipolar and one pole balanced the other,' he said.
'Now the reason for what's happening in the world is unipolarity - the monopolisation of our planet by the United States of America.'
Some believe Putin miscalculated by declaring war on his westerly neighbour and that he underestimated the unpopularity of such a move back home, with one aide to jailed opposition leader Mr Navalny predicting it will be his downfall.
Vladimir Ashurkov, chief executive of Mr Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, told the Independent the war would spark a democratic revolt within Russia.
He said: 'The war is not popular and the economic decline is not going to be popular. I think it brings forward the demise of Putin's regime.
'I think we will see increasingly widespread dissent in the business and political elite, and mass dissatisfaction in the population – I think this will lead to big political change.'
The pro-democracy dissident added: 'I think that it's likely that we see a real change of government within five years. At what cost? How exactly will it happen? That remains to be seen.'
He added that he believes there is a 'core group' made up of around 25 to 30 per cent of Russians who still support Putin.
He said: 'I think most people are really shocked by the invasion. War for them is something imaginable.
'This invasion has made many people asked, ‘Why? What is the purpose?’ Because there is no end goal that people can see that is rational.
'When the economic costs start to sink in, people will be more and more disillusioned.'
It comes after Russia used its latest hypersonic missile - known as the Kinzhal - for the first time during its attack on Ukraine, a military spokesman said today, reportedly wiping out an underground warehouse storing Ukrainian missiles and ammunition in the western Ivano-Frankivsk region.
Meanwhile, it also emerged Saturday that corpses of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine are being moved from Belarus back to Russia by train and planes in the dead of night to avoid attracting attention.
Video posted by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty shows military ambulances driving through the Belarusian city of Homel in early March, with employees at the region's clinical hospital claiming more than 2,500 bodies have already been shipped back to Russia as of March 13.
In other developments:
- Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky urged Putin to negotiate with him directly, saying otherwise Russia will take 'several generations to recover';
- Putin's lapdog Sergei Lavrov sneered that Russia's ties to China would grow stronger as a result of Western sanctions;
- Joe Biden warned China's despot Xi Jinping there would be 'consequences' if it supported Russia;
- Putin's tub-thumping speech at a massive stage pro-war rally in Moscow on Friday was ridiculed as 'Billy Graham meets North Korea';
- Kremlin staff were allegedly forced to attend the rally in the Luzhniki World Cup stadium in a bid to drum up support for Putin's stalled invasion of Ukraine;
- One of Ukraine's most famous stage actresses has been killed in a Russian rocket attack while she slept in an apartment in southeast Kyiv;
- British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said 'barbaric' Putin is 'panicking' and that he must be defeated in Ukraine;
- Foreign Secretary Liz Truss claimed that peace talks between Russia and Ukraine could be a 'smokescreen' for Kremlin forces to fortify their positions and advance.
According to one US intelligence estimate, 7,000 Russian troops including four generals have already been killed – more than the number of American troops killed in either the Iraq or Afghanistan wars at 4,825 and 3,576 respectively – and between 14,000 and 21,000 troops have been injured in the fighting. The estimated Russian death toll is of a scale similar to that of the Battle of Iwo Jima, where 6,852 US troops were killed and 19,000 were wounded during five weeks of fighting Japanese forces in the most intense phase of the Pacific theatre of World War Two
Ukraine's military claims Russia has lost 466 tanks, 115 helicopters, 914 vehicles, 95 aircraft, 213 artillery systems, 44 anti-aircraft weapons and 60 fuel tanks. The information could not be independently verified
Putin attends a concert marking the eighth anniversary of the annexation of Crimea at the Luzhniki stadium in Moscow
Apartments damaged by shelling, in Kharkiv, Ukraine, March 13, 2022
Rescuers carry a Ukrainian soldier after he was trapped for 30 hours under the debris of the destroyed military school, hit by Russian rockets, in Mykolaiv, southern Ukraine, on Saturday
Russia unleashed its 'unstoppable' Kinzhal hypersonic missiles for the first time in Ukraine, the defence ministry said today, destroying a weapons storage site in the country's west on Friday. Pictured: An injured woman looks on as she receives medical treatment after shelling in a residential area in Kyiv on March 18, 2022
More than 1,300 people including women and babies are still feared trapped in the bombed ruins of a theatre in the besieged city of Mariupol (pictured)
This satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies on Saturday, March 19, shows the aftermath of the Russian airstrike on the Mariupol Drama theatre in Ukraine
Ukrainian policemen secure the area by a residential building that partially collapsed after a shelling in Kyiv, March 18, 2022
Cars drive past a destroyed Russian tank as a convoy of vehicles evacuating civilians leaves Irpin, March 9, 2022
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Ukraine's military says that more than 14,000 Kremlin troops have been killed since the Russian invasion on February 24, while one US intelligence estimate has put the number at around 7,000. Moscow's Defence Ministry says that less than 500 soldiers have been killed.
Now Belarusian medical staff in Homel, in southeastern Belarus, have described 'overflowing' morgues, with one resident of the city Mazyr claiming: 'Passengers at the Mazyr train station were shocked by the number of corpses being loaded on the train. After people started shooting video, the military caught them and ordered them to remove it.'
A doctor at Mazyr's main city hospital warned: 'There are not enough surgeons. Earlier, the corpses were transported by ambulances and loaded on Russian trains. After someone made a video about it and it went on the Internet, the bodies were loaded at night so as not to attract attention.'
Officials at Hospital No4 in Homel are alleged to have begun discharging current patients on March 1 because of the sheer number of wounded Russian soldiers to treat.
One resident who was treated in the hospital said: 'There are so many wounded Russians there – it's just a horror. Terribly disfigured. It is impossible to listen to their moans throughout the whole hospital.'
Another doctor described growing concern among locals that there could be a shortage of everyday medication and of 'problems with anti-tetanus drugs'. Tetanus is a common ailment afflicting soldiers suffering from shrapnel and bullet wounds.
Homel borders Russia to the east and Ukraine to the south. The city of Homel is Belarus' largest after Minsk, and a major hub for trade and transport. The country's despot Alexander Lukashenko supports Putin's war and allowed a deployment of major Russian military units in the country. An unknown number of Russian troops moved south towards Ukraine's capital Kyiv from Homel.
Ukraine and the West claim that Russia's invasion is floundering in part due to fierce Ukrainian resistance, poor planning and low morale among Russian forces. According to one US intelligence estimate, 7,000 Russian troops including four generals have already been killed – more than the number of American troops killed in either the Iraq or Afghanistan wars at 4,825 and 3,576 respectively – and between 14,000 and 21,000 troops have been injured in the fighting.
The estimated Russian death toll is of a scale similar to that of the Battle of Iwo Jima, where 6,852 US troops were killed and 19,000 were wounded during five weeks of fighting Japanese forces in the most intense phase of the Pacific theatre of World War Two.
Ukraine's military has also suffered heavy losses, likely to be much higher than the 1,300 troops which Kyiv has confirmed as killed.
According to Ukraine's military, Russia has lost 466 tanks, 115 helicopters, 914 vehicles, 95 aircraft, 213 artillery systems, 44 anti-aircraft weapons and 60 fuel tanks. Russia has not responded to Kyiv's latest estimates, and the information could not be independently verified.
It comes as Russia used its latest hypersonic missile for the first time during its attack on Ukraine, a military spokesman said.
Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said the hypersonic missiles, known as Kinzhal, destroyed an underground warehouse storing missiles and aviation ammunition of Ukrainian troops in the western Ivano-Frankivsk region.
Konashenkov also said the Russian forces used the anti-ship missile system Bastion to strike Ukrainian military facilities near the Black Sea port of Odesa.
Russia first used the weapon during its military campaign in Syria in 2016.
Ukrainian officials said hospitals, schools and buildings where people sought safety have been attacked.
Ludmyla Denisova, the Ukrainian Parliament's human rights commissioner, said at least 130 people had survived Wednesday's bombing of a Mariupol theatre that was being used a shelter.
'But according to our data, there are still more than 1,300 people in these basements, in this bomb shelter,' Denisova told Ukrainian television. 'We pray that they will all be alive, but so far there is no information about them.'
Satellite images on Friday from Maxar Technologies showed a long line of cars leaving Mariupol as people tried to evacuate.
One person was reported killed in a missile attack near Lviv, the closest strike yet to the city's centre. Satellite photos showed the strike destroyed a repair hangar and appeared to damage two other buildings.
Ukraine said it shot down two of six missiles in the volley, which came from the Black Sea.
Lviv has become a crossroads for people fleeing from other parts of Ukraine and for others entering to deliver aid or join the fight, with its population swelling by some 200,000.
Early morning barrages that hit a residential building in the Podil neighbourhood of Kyiv killed at least one person. Emergency services said 98 people were evacuated from the building and Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said 19 were wounded.
Ukrainian officials said a fireman was also killed when Russian forces shelled an area where firefighters were trying to put out a blaze in the village of Nataevka, in the Zaporizhzhia region.
Two others were killed when strikes hit residential and administrative buildings in the eastern city of Kramatorsk, according to the regional governor, Pavlo Kyrylenko.
Major General Oleksandr Pavlyuk, who is leading the defence of the region around Ukraine's capital, said his forces are well-positioned to defend the city and vowed: 'We will never give up. We will fight until the end. To the last breath and to the last bullet.'
Russian troops have continued to pound the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, and launched a barrage of missiles against an aircraft repair installation at an airport on the outskirts of the western city of Lviv, close to the Polish border. One person was reported wounded.
Satellite photos showed the strike destroyed a repair hangar and appeared to damage two other buildings. A row of fighter jets appeared intact, but an apparent impact crater sat in front of them.
Damaged civil settlement is seen after Russian shelling in Kyiv, Ukraine, March 18, 2022
People get upset after Russian shelling destroyed their homes in Kyiv, Ukraine, March 18, 2022
Handout image shows an apartment building after a rocket strike in Kramatorsk, Donetsk Oblast, March 18, 2022
Residents are seen on the street after emerging from bomb shelters, gathering their belongings as they prepare to flee the city
109 empty baby carriages on display in Lviv city center for the 109 babies killed so far during Russia's invasion of Ukraine
Pictured: A video screen grab showing a test of the Kh-47M2 Kinzhal, dubbed 'an ideal weapon' by Vladimir Putin (file photo)
The missile can carry both conventional weapons and nuclear warheads, and can be launched from fighter jets - including Tu-22M3 bombers or MiG-31K interceptors. Pictured: The missile is seen being carried by a MiG-31K during a fly-over of Moscow's Red Square in 2018
Ukraine said it had shot down two of six missiles in the volley, which came from the Black Sea.
The early morning barrage of missiles on Lviv's edge was the closest strike yet to the centre of the city, which has become a crossroads for people fleeing from other parts of Ukraine and for others entering to deliver aid or fight.
In city after city around Ukraine, hospitals, schools and buildings where people sought safety have been attacked. Rescue workers were still searching for survivors in the ruins of a theatre that served as a shelter when it was blasted by a Russian airstrike on Wednesday in the besieged southern city of Mariupol.
Ludmyla Denisova, the Ukrainain parliament's human rights commissioner, said on Friday that 130 people had survived the theatre bombing.
'As of now, we know that 130 people have been evacuated, but according to our data, there are still more than 1,300 people in these basements, in this bomb shelter,' Denisova told Ukrainian television. 'We pray that they will all be alive, but so far there is no information about them.'
At Lviv, black smoke billowed for hours after the explosions, which hit a facility for repairing military aircraft near the city's international airport, only four miles from the centre. One person was wounded, the regional governor, Maksym Kozytsky, said.
Multiple blasts hit in quick succession around 6am, shaking nearby buildings, witnesses said. The missiles were launched from the Black Sea, but the Ukrainian air force's western command said it had shot down two of six missiles in the volley. A bus repair facility was also damaged, Lviv's mayor, Andriy Sadovyi, said.
Lviv lies not far from the Polish border and well behind the front lines, but it and the surrounding area have not been spared Russia's attacks. In the worst, nearly three dozen people were killed last weekend in a strike on a training facility near the city.
Lviv's population has swelled by some 200,000 as people from elsewhere in Ukraine have sought shelter there.
Early morning barrages also hit a residential building in the Podil neighborhood of Kyiv, killing at least one person, according to emergency services, who said 98 people were evacuated from the building. Kyiv mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said 19 were wounded in the shelling.
Two others were killed when strikes hit residential and administrative buildings in the eastern city of Kramatorsk, according to the regional governor, Pavlo Kyrylenko.
Putin spoke in front of a crowd tens of thousands strong at the Luzhniki World Cup stadium in Moscow, one of the few times he has been seen in public since launching his invasion 23 days ago
Putin called the rally to mark the eighth anniversary of 'annexing' Crimea, speaking of 'de-Nazifying' the peninsula and of debunked claims of 'genocide' in the Donbass
People get upset after Russian shelling destroyed their homes in Kyiv, Ukraine, March 18, 2022
Ukrainian local residents collect their belongings from their apartment in a residential building after it was hit by the debris of a rocket in Shuliavka, Solomyanskiy district in Kyiv, March 18, 2022
An Ukrainian local resident walks by the debris of a missile explosion in Lukianivska in Kyiv, March 18, 2022
Ukrainian local residents collect their belongings from their apartment in a residential building after it was hit by the debris of a rocket in Shuliavka, Solomyanskiy district in Kyiv, March 18, 2022
Putin fires hypersonic missile at Ukraine: Russia steps up war of attrition with another strike on west of country with 9,000mph missile as Kyiv claims invaders have suffered 15,000 casualties
Russia unleashed its 'unstoppable' Kinzhal hypersonic missiles for the first time in Ukraine, the defence ministry said today, destroying a weapons storage site in the country's west on Friday.
Russia has never before admitted using the high-precision weapon in combat, and state news agency RIA Novosti said it was the first use of the Kinzhal hypersonic weapons during the conflict in pro-Western Ukraine.
Moscow claims the 'Kinzhal'- or Dagger - is 'unstoppable' by current Western weapons. The missile, which has a range of 1,250 miles, is nuclear capable. This was a conventional strike.
'The Kinzhal aviation missile system with hypersonic aeroballistic missiles destroyed a large underground warehouse containing missiles and aviation ammunition in the village of Deliatyn in the Ivano-Frankivsk region', the Russian defence ministry said Saturday.
Russian Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov also said that the Russian forces used the anti-ship missile system Bastion to strike Ukrainian military facilities near the Black Sea port of Odesa.
Ukraine defence officials are yet to comment on the Russian claims.
Russia reportedly first used the weapon during its military campaign in Syria in 2016 to support the Assad regime, although it was unclear if this was the same model. Some of the most intense bombing came in 2016 during the battle for Aleppo, resulting in hundreds of civilian deaths.
In Kharkiv, a massive fire raged through a local market after shelling on Thursday. One firefighter was killed and another injured when new shelling hit as emergency workers fought the blaze, emergency services said.
The World Health Organisation said it has verified 43 attacks on hospitals and health facilities, with 12 people killed and 34 injured.
US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said on Thursday that American officials were evaluating potential war crimes and that if the intentional targeting of civilians by Russia is confirmed, there will be 'massive consequences'.
The United Nations political chief, undersecretary-general, Rosemary DiCarlo, also called for an investigation into civilian casualties, reminding the UN Security Council that international humanitarian law bans direct attacks on civilians.
She said many of the daily attacks battering Ukrainian cities 'are reportedly indiscriminate' and involve the use of 'explosive weapons with a wide impact area'. DiCarlo said the devastation in Mariupol and Kharkiv 'raises grave fears about the fate of millions of residents of Kyiv and other cities facing intensifying attacks'.
Hundreds of civilians were said to have taken shelter in a grand, columned theatre in the city's centre when it was hit on Wednesday by a Russian airstrike. On Friday, their fate was still uncertain, with conflicting reports on whether anyone had emerged from the rubble. Communications are disrupted across the city and movement is difficult because of shelling and fighting.
'We hope and we think that some people who stayed in the shelter under the theatre could survive,' Petro Andrushchenko, an official with the mayor's office, told the Associated Press on Thursday. He said the building had a relatively modern, basement bomb shelter designed to withstand airstrikes. Other officials said earlier that some people had gotten out.
Video and photos provided by the Ukrainian military showed the at least three-story building had been reduced to a roofless shell, with some exterior walls collapsed. Satellite imagery on Monday from Maxar Technologies showed huge white letters on the pavement outside the theatre spelling out 'CHILDREN' in Russian to alert warplanes to the vulnerable people hiding inside.
Russia's military denied bombing the theatre or anyplace else in Mariupol on Wednesday.
In Chernihiv, at least 53 people were brought to morgues over 24 hours, killed amid heavy Russian air attacks and ground fire, the local governor, Viacheslav Chaus, told Ukrainian TV on Thursday.
Ukraine's emergency services said a mother, father and three of their children, including three-year-old twins, were killed when a Chernihiv hostel was shelled. Civilians were hiding in basements and shelters across the embattled city of 280,000.
'The city has never known such nightmarish, colossal losses and destruction,' Chaus said.
Ukraine's comic-turned-wartime leader Volodymyr Zelensky said early on Friday he was thankful to President Joe Biden for additional military aid, but he would not get into specifics about the new package, saying he did not want Russia to know what to expect.
He said when the invasion began on February 24, Russia expected to find Ukraine much as it did in 2014, when Russia seized Crimea without a fight and backed separatists as they took control of the eastern Donbas region.
Instead, he said, Ukraine had much stronger defences than expected, and Russia 'didn't know what we had for defence or how we prepared to meet the blow'.
In a joint statement, the foreign ministers of the Group of Seven leading economies accused Putin of conducting an 'unprovoked and shameful war', and called on Russia to comply with the International Court of Justice='s order to stop its attack and withdraw its forces.
Both Ukraine and Russia this week reported some progress in negotiations. Zelensky said he would not reveal Ukraine's negotiating tactics.
'Working more in silence than on television, radio or on Facebook,' Zelensky said. 'I consider it the right way.'
Putin spoke by phone on Friday with German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, who urged the Russian president to agree to an immediate cease-fire and called for an improvement to the humanitarian situation, a spokesman for Scholz said.
In a statement about the call, the Kremlin said Putin told the German chancellor that Ukraine had 'unrealistic proposals' and was dragging out negotiations. The Kremlin also said it was evacuating civilians, and accused Ukraine of committing war crimes by shelling cities in the east.
While details of Thursday's talks were unknown, an official in Zelensky's office told the AP that on Wednesday, the main subject discussed was whether Russian troops would remain in separatist regions in eastern Ukraine after the war and where the borders would be.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive talks, said Ukraine was insisting on the inclusion of one or more Western nuclear powers in the negotiations and on legally binding security guarantees for Ukraine.
In exchange, the official said, Ukraine was ready to discuss a neutral military status.
Russia has demanded that NATO pledge never to admit Ukraine to the alliance or station forces there.
The fighting has led more than 3million people to flee Ukraine, the UN estimates. The death toll remains unknown, though Ukraine has said thousands of civilians have died.
'End this war now... or Russia will take several GENERATIONS to recover': Zelensky tells Putin 'it's time to talk'... as kill count suffered by his invading forces is now HIGHER than other major conflicts
Volodymyr Zelensky has urged Russian warmonger Vladimir Putin to end his illegal invasion and negotiate directly with Ukraine's comic-turned-wartime president, warning that otherwise Russia will take 'several generations to recover'.
In a night-time video address to the nation outside the Presidential Office on Friday, Zelensky also accused Russian forces of deliberately causing a 'humanitarian catastrophe' to pressure Kyiv into capitulating to Putin's demands.
Appealing to Putin to hold direct talks with him as Kremlin troops encircle Ukraine's capital, he said: 'We have always insisted on negotiations. We have offered dialogue, offered solutions for peace. Not just for 23 days of invasion.
'I want everyone to hear me now, especially in Moscow. The time has come for a meeting, it is time to talk. It's time to restore territorial integrity and justice for Ukraine. Otherwise, Russia's losses will be such that it will take you several generations to recover.'
Volodymyr Zelensky has urged Russian warmonger Vladimir Putin to end his illegal invasion and negotiate directly with Ukraine's comic-turned-wartime president, warning that otherwise Russia will take 'several generations to recover'
A Ukrainian Territorial Defence Forces member holds an NLAW anti-tank weapon, in the outskirts of Kyiv, March 9, 2022
Ukraine and the West claim that Russia's invasion is floundering in part due to fierce Ukrainian resistance, poor planning and low morale among Russian forces. According to one US intelligence estimate, 7,000 Russian troops including four generals have already been killed – more than the number of American troops killed in either the Iraq or Afghanistan wars at 4,825 and 3,576 respectively – and between 14,000 and 21,000 troops have been injured in the fighting.
The estimated Russian death toll is of a scale similar to that of the Battle of Iwo Jima, where 6,852 US troops were killed and 19,000 were wounded during five weeks of fighting Japanese forces in the most intense phase of the Pacific theatre of World War Two.
Ukraine's military has also suffered heavy losses, likely to be much higher than the 1,300 troops which Kyiv has confirmed as killed.
According to Ukraine's military, Russia has lost 466 tanks, 115 helicopters, 914 vehicles, 95 aircraft, 213 artillery systems, 44 anti-aircraft weapons and 60 fuel tanks. Russia has not responded to Kyiv's latest estimates, and the information could not be independently verified.
The Kremlin has demanded that Ukraine renounce any ambitions to join NATO, be neutral along the lines of Sweden and Austria, acknowledge Crimea as Russian territory and recognise the separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk as independent territories.
Putin's lapdog Sergei Lavrov said neutrality was taking centre stage and that Moscow and Kyiv were 'close to agreeing' the wording of an agreement on NATO. But Kyiv rejected the proposal and instead called for a global security guarantee among Western partners, including potentially Britain, who will defend Ukraine if it is invaded again.
Boris says 'barbarian' Putin is 'panicking' about revolution in Russia and was terrified of having democratic Ukraine on his borders - as he warns West must 'take back control' of energy supplies to stop Kremlin
Boris Johnson today accused 'barbarian' Vladimir Putin of invading Ukraine because he is 'panicking' about a revolution in Russia.
Delivering his keynote speech to the Tory conference in Blackpool, the PM said the dictator invaded Ukraine because he is terrified of a free, democratic country on his borders.
He gave a stark message to the West that 'bold steps' have to be taken to wean off Moscow's fuel supplies, warning that Putin 'must fail' or he will usher in a 'new age of intimidation'.
The premier also made clear that the UK intends to push ahead with North Sea oil and gas development - and potentially fracking - saying the country will 'make better use of our own naturally occurring hydrocarbons'.
Mr Johnson's speech was as usual littered with jokes and he was given a warn reception by the Tory faithful.
It was the first time he has addressed them since the Partygate scandal erupted, and Cabinet ministers are increasingly confident he can survive after being seen to handle the Ukraine crisis well.
But the PM's focus was very much on the global standoff with Russia.
Boris Johnson today accused 'barbarian' Vladimir Putin of invading Ukraine because he is 'panicking' about a revolution in Russia
Putin spoke in front of a crowd tens of thousands strong at the Luzhniki World Cup stadium in Moscow, one of the few times he has been seen in public since launching his invasion 23 days ago
Mr Johnson said: 'With every day that Ukraine's heroic resistance continues, it is clear that Putin has made a catastrophic mistake.
'You have to ask yourself why he did it – why did he decide to invade this totally innocent country?
'He didn't really believe that Ukraine was going to join Nato any time soon, he knew perfectly well there was no plan to put missiles on Ukrainian soil.
'He didn't really believe the semi-mystical guff he wrote about the origins of the Russian people…. Nostradamus meets Russian Wikipedia. That wasn't what it was about.
'I think he was frightened of Ukraine for an entirely different reason.
'He was frightened of Ukraine because in Ukraine they have a free press and in Ukraine they have free elections.'
Mr Johnson said that for Putin, a free and democratic Ukraine was a threat to his style of rule.
'With every year that Ukraine progressed – not always easily – towards freedom and democracy and open markets, he feared the Ukrainian example and he feared the implicit reproach to himself,' he said.
'Because in Putin's Russia you get jailed for 15 years just for calling an invasion an invasion, and if you stand against Putin in an election you get poisoned or shot.
'It's precisely because Ukraine and Russia have been so historically close that he has been terrified of the effect of that Ukrainian model on him and on Russia.'
He added: 'He's been in a total panic about a so-called colour revolution in Russia itself.'
Suggesting the West can never deal with Putin again, Mr Johnson said re-normalising relations with him would be to 'make exactly the same mistake again' after the invasion of Georgia.
Russians secretly denounce Putin's 'Billy Graham meets Kim Jong-Un' pro-war rally: YouTube live stream is flooded with critical comments after Kremlin FORCED tens of thousands to attend by bussing them in... before they left early
Vladimir Putin's tub-thumping speech yesterday was likened to 'Billy Graham meets North Korea' by a Russian commentator, a reference to both the American Christian evangelist and Kim Jong-un's propagandising rallies, while the YouTube live stream of the rally was flooded with critical comments.
Tens of thousands of flag-waving Russians packed out Moscow's Luzhniki World Cup stadium on Friday as the despot attempted to drum up support for his stalled invasion of Ukraine, peddled debunked claims about why the war started and shilled a false narrative of Russia's battlefield 'success'.
However, speaking to journalists outside the stadium, some said they were government workers who had been pressured to come, and were bussed to the event. Others were students who were told they could have a day off from lectures if they attended 'a concert'.
In one video, as a reporter attempted to film the crowds outside the stadium, attendees were seen turning their backs to the camera in an attempt to hide their faces.
Several Telegram channels critical of the Kremlin reported that students and employees of state institutions in a number of regions were ordered by their superiors to attend rallies and concerts marking the Crimea anniversary. Those reports could not be independently verified.
Putin used the rally to peddle falsehoods about why the war started and to shill a narrative of Russia's battlefield success, speaking of 'how our guys are fighting during this operation, shoulder to shoulder, helping each other'
Putin called the rally to mark the eighth anniversary of 'annexing' Crimea, speaking of 'de-Nazifying' the peninsula and of debunked claims of 'genocide' in the Donbass
Putin fans in the crowd were seen waving banners emblazoned with the letter 'Z', which has been adopted as a symbol of the invasion and the Kremlin's wider aim of restoring national pride through conquest
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un waves at the crowd during a military parade at Kim Il-sung Square in Pyongyang, North Korea, September 9 2021 (file photo)
Pictured: Reverend Billy Graham speaks to a huge congregation at an open-air meeting in London's Trafalgar Square, during his Greater London Crusade Tour in 1954
Meanwhile, whoever set up a live stream of the event on YouTube did not turn the comment section off, meaning thousands of negative comments towards the event - written in Russian - flooded the page, as did blue and yellow heart emojis - the colours of Ukraine's flag.
In his speech, Putin quoted the Bible's book of John, praising his troops in Ukraine. 'The words from the sacred scripture come to my mind: 'There is no greater love than if someone laid down his life for his friends,'' he said.
The event was heavily anti-Western and filled with Soviet nostalgia, as Russian authorities ramped up patriotism in response to being hit by massive international sanctions for Putin's Ukraine campaign, which has stalled thanks to fierce resistance. Thousands of Russian soldiers have been killed.
Putin's rally was quickly likened to similar massive marches held by North Korea's dictator Kim Jong-Un, which are said to be attended by citizens who are given no other choice, as well as the massive evangelical rallies hosted by American minister Billy Graham in America.
One Russian commentator called the event 'Billy Graham meets North Korea', according to The Daily Telegraph.
In the wake of the invasion, the Kremlin has cracked down harder on dissent and the flow of information, arresting thousands of antiwar protesters, banning sites such as Facebook and Twitter, and handing out tough prison sentences for what it says is false reporting on the war, which Moscow refers to as a 'special military operation.'
The OVD-Info rights group that monitors political arrests reported that at least seven independent journalists had been detained ahead of or while covering the anniversary events in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
There we also other signs that not was all as it seemed. There were reports on twitter suggesting some of the footage used of the rally was old footage from another video from 2021.
And a bizarre moment in the speech came when Putin suddenly disappeared from news feeds in mid-sentence - replaced by a band that was mid-way through singing, perhaps suggesting his address was not broadcast live.
Is Putin trying to knock out West's GPS network? EU aviation authorities claim satellites are under constant 'jamming' or 'spoofing' attacks disrupting navigation from Finland to the Mediterranean
Russia has been accused of interfering with the global GPS navigation system during a major Nordic war game in Finland .
European aviation authorities have said signals, heavily used by commercial aircraft, have been affected from Finland, through the Mediterranean and even as far as Iraq .
Disruptions to Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), which include GPS, are caused by the 'jamming' or 'spoofing' of satellite signals.
Since the war erupted on February 24, 'jamming and/or possible spoofing has intensified in geographical areas surrounding the conflict zone and other areas,' the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) said in an online bulletin Thursday.
The European Airline Safety Agency has warned GPS signals in an area from Finland to Iraq has been disrupted
The European Aviation Safety Agency has warned airlines to be aware of possible attacks on teh integrity of the GPS system and ensure pilots do not rely on the satellite based system
The EASA said the issue was observed in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, the Baltics, eastern Finland, the Black Sea, the eastern Mediterranean and northern Iraq.
'The effects of GNSS jamming and/or possible spoofing were observed by aircraft in various phases of their flights, in certain cases leading to re-routing or even to change the destination due to the inability to perform a safe landing procedure,' the agency said.
But the agency said it is unlikely that they will need to suspend flight operations.
EASA asked all air transit workers to report any GPS anomalies and warned that aircraft operators should be ready to use other navigation tools in case of satellite malfunctions.
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Putin's 'in better shape than EVER' and not acting 'irrational' over Ukraine, says Lukashenko
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