PARIS, June 15. /TASS/. Ukraine’s counteroffensive has failed and NATO’s weapons have not helped Kiev, deputy speaker of Russia’s State Duma (lower parliament house) Pyotr Tolstoy said on Wednesday.
"We see that Ukraine’s counteroffensive has failed infamously, with NATO’s weapons being useless," he said in an interview with the BFM television channel. "Kiev has failed in what concerns communication too, since the majority of Europeans now understand that it was a mistake to support Ukrainians."
According to Tolstoy, in recent time, Russia has destroyed a large number of Western-made tanks. "Russia has already destroyed 120 Western tanks on the battlefield during this failed Ukrainian counteroffensive," he said.
He noted that Ukraine would not be able to join NATO. "Despite the NATO summit in Vilnius and its desire to admit Ukraine, it will never be the alliance’s member," he stressed. "It was NATO’s expansion that lead to the situation which provoked the special military operation."
The Russian Defense Ministry reported that since June 4, Ukrainian forces have been making failed counteroffensive attempts, suffering losses in manpower and hardware. On June 6, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said that over the past three days, the Russian military had repelled all of Ukraine’s attempts to launch its "long-promised offensive." Ukraine lost up to 3,715 men, 259 tanks and armored combat vehicles, 134 trucks, 48 field artillery guns and more than 50 drones. Russian President Vladimir Putin also said that Ukrainian forces are not successful in any of the directions.
Bloomberg said that the West acknowledges the huge losses suffered by the Ukrainian army. Meanwhile, the Politico newspaper wrote citing senior US officials that future support for Kiev hinges on the success of its counteroffensive.