Putin:

Putin: Here they have entered the Kursk region. Well, the losses are colossal. More casualties in three months of fighting than the Kiev regime had in the whole of last year. Over thirty thousand. Well they’ve lost fewer tanks. Now it’s somewhere around two hundred, and last year they lost two hundred and forty, I think. There’s just fewer tanks! So there’s fewer losses. They use them less. Why are they sitting there with such losses? Because they were ordered from the ocean to hold on at any cost, at any cost, at least until the elections, to show that all the efforts of the democratic administration on the Kiev direction, on the Ukrainian direction, were not in vain. To hold on at all costs. At any cost. That’s the price! A terrible tragedy, I believe. Both for the Ukrainian people and for the Ukrainian army. And the decisions were dictated not by military considerations, to be honest, but by political considerations. Source: Slavyangrad