MOSCOW- Reuters- President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that the Russian army must learn from and fix the problems it had suffered in Ukraine, promising to give the military whatever it needed to prosecute a war nearing the end of its 10th month.
In a speech to defence chiefs in Moscow, Putin said there were no financial limits on what the government would provide in terms of equipment and hardware.
“We have no funding restrictions. The country and the government are providing everything that the army asks for,” he said.
Putin acknowledged, not for the first time, that the call-up of 300,000 reservists that he ordered in September had not gone smoothly.
“The partial mobilisation that was carried out revealed certain problems, as everyone well knows, which should be promptly addressed,” he said.
The call-up drew strong criticism even from Kremlin allies, as it emerged that military commissariats were enlisting many men who were physically unfit or too old, and new recruits were lacking basic equipment such as sleeping bags and winter clothing.
Putin also referred to other unspecified problems in the military and said that constructive criticism should be heeded.
“I ask the Ministry of Defence to be attentive to all civilian initiatives, including taking into account criticism and responding correctly, in a timely manner,” he said.
“It is clear that the reaction of people who see problems – and there are always problems in such major, complex work – can be emotional, but we need to hear those who do not hush up the existing problems, but strive to contribute to their solution.”
It was the latest in a series of recent comments in which Putin has acknowledged, albeit obliquely, the challenges his army is facing.
On Tuesday, he told security officers that the situation in four regions of Ukraine that Russia has claimed as its own territory – something Kyiv rejects – was “highly complicated”.
And on Dec. 7, he said Russia could be fighting in Ukraine for a long time.
Nearly 10 months on from its Feb. 24 invasion, Russia occupies a huge swathe of eastern and southern Ukraine along a front stretching some 1,100 km (685 miles) but has suffered a series of defeats that have swung the war’s momentum in favour of its smaller adversary.
