Putin: Advance of Russian Forces in Ukraine is to be Planned

President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Russian forces were improving their positions every day along the front in Ukraine in all directions and that the advance was going to plan.
Russia has been pushing Ukrainian forces back at various points in recent months despite hundreds of billions of dollars worth of aid from the United States and its allies.
Putin, at a meeting in the Kremlin with new Defense Minister Andrei Belousov, Secretary of the Security Council Sergei Shoigu, and top generals, said the work of the military was “proceeding according to the plan” approved by the General Staff.

Russian forces have this month opened a new front in the Kharkiv region, home to Ukraine’s second biggest city, forcing Ukraine to rush in soldiers from other parts of the front line.

Russia’s defense ministry said on Wednesday it had taken control of two more settlements in Ukraine’s north-eastern Kharkiv region and one in the southern Zaporizhzhia region.

Putin thanked Shoigu for his previous work in the role of defense minister. He said “many things were not clear before the outbreak of hostilities” and said Shoigu would help him manage the military and security sections of the state.
Putin said he had appointed Belousov, who was dressed in a civilian suit, due to rising defense and security spending which he said would amount to 8.7 percent of gross domestic product or a little more. That is still below the Soviet level of 13 percent in the mid-1980s.