Putin to skip marathon annual information convention amid Ukraine struggle setbacks

Russian President Vladimir Putin is not going to maintain his annual televised information convention this yr amid mounting setbacks for the Russian military in Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov advised reporters that as an alternative, Putin will maintain the marathon information convention someday after the New Yr, in accordance with Russian information service Tass.

“However we anticipate that the president will nonetheless discover a possibility to speak to [the media] as he does commonly, together with throughout his international visits,” Peskov mentioned.

Tass reported there was no clear indication of what the following date may be for the information convention.

The televised end-of-year convention is an enormous platform for the Russian president, who makes use of it as a possibility to tout accomplishments and reveal priorities for the approaching yr.

In the course of the occasion, Putin sometimes sits in an auditorium and solutions a spherical of questions from reporters.

Putin hasn’t skipped the information convention in 10 years, in accordance with The Moscow Instances.

The scrub comes as Russian troops have endured a number of setbacks in Ukraine, a struggle that’s now approaching a 10-month mark.

Putin ordered a full-scale invasion in late February, indicating he might have been anticipating to grab Kyiv in a matter of days.

Russia was pushed out of the western area over the spring and has now misplaced a number of key territories within the japanese and southern a part of Ukraine, the place preventing continues.

In a discussion board final week, Putin acknowledged the struggle “may very well be a prolonged course of,” at the same time as he mentioned the Russian military had gained a big quantity of territory and would carry the struggle via to the tip.