Vedant Patel: Putin Turns To 'Increasingly Desperate Actions' To Keep War Machine Going

Washington on Wednesday said that it considers Russia's latest actions to be "another example of how the [war in Ukraine] is not going according to President Putin’s plans," and that "he is having to turn to increasingly desperate actions to keep the war machine going," State Department's principal deputy spokesperson said during the daily press briefing.

Patel's comments came in response to TURAN's questions about Russia's reportedly recruiting Afghan commanders, trained by the U.S. Navy SEALs, as well as Ramzan Kadyrov's recent declaring "great jihad" against Ukrainians.

While the State Department didn't immediately have any new assessment to offer or confirmation for those reports, Patel said, "this is a possible follow-up to the Russian Federation attempting to provision assets from places like the DPRK and Iran and elsewhere."

TURAN also asked the State Department official about Putin's personally monitoring Russian strategic nuclear forces drill, as fears are rising that a major event on Ukrainian soil in the near future will be a Russian “false flag” operation, given that Moscow looks to regain momentum amid a successful counteroffensive from Kyiv. 

Russia, the White House official said, notified Washington of the tests in advance.

As for the drills, which involved multiple practice launches of ballistic and cruise missiles, "were successful," according to the Kremlin.

Alex Raufoglu

Washington D.C.