“The special military operation will continue until the tasks are fully completed,” Shoigu said.
Shoigu also said that “preserving the lives of servicemen and the safety of the civilian population are the main priorities of the Ministry of Defense.”
In fact, the Russian army has suffered severe losses since it launched its aggressive invasion of Ukraine, and had caused thousands of civilian casualties among Ukrainians through the indiscriminate use of artillery, rockets and cruise missiles in residential areas.
It has also been discovered that Russian soldiers committed atrocities against civilians in the towns they occupied at the beginning of the war – in particular the towns of Irpin, Hostomel and Borodyanka to the north-west of the capital Kyiv.
More than 1,000 civilians in Kyiv Oblast are known to have been murdered by Russian soldiers in the month that they were present. Many of them were murdered, execution style, with bound hands and shots to the head.
The head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine, Kyrylo Budanov, earlier stated that Russia’s war against Ukraine should end with Ukraine’s returning to its 1991 borders.
Asked when this could happen, Budanov said that it could be in 2023.
