Head of the Armed forces says Putin has 'already lost the Ukraine war'

Head of the Armed forces Sir Tony Radakin says Putin has ‘already lost the Ukraine war’ but warns Russia is still ‘the biggest threat’ the UK faces

• UK Chief of the Defence Staff said Ukraine’s army ‘absolutely’ believes it will win
• Admiral Sir Radakin said Russia is ‘struggling’ with land combat effectiveness
• 50,000 Russian soldiers that have either died or been injured in the conflict 
• Around 1,700 tanks have been destroyed, as well as 4,000 armoured vehicles  

Head of the Armed forces Sir Tony Radakin said that Putin has ‘already lost the Ukraine war’ but warned that Russia is still ‘the biggest threat’ the UK faces.

The UK Chief of the Defence Staff said Ukraine’s army ‘absolutely’ believes it will win the war in the face of a ‘struggling’ Russia that has ‘lost more than 30 per cent of its land combat effectiveness’.

Admiral Sir Tony Radakin told BBC One’s Sunday Morning show that Ukraine plans to restore ‘the whole of their territory’.

He said that 50,000 Russian soldiers that have either died or been injured in the conflict, nearly 1,700 Russian tanks destroyed, alongside nearly 4,000 armoured fighting vehicles that belong to Russia.

‘What you’re seeing is a Russia, if we focus on the Donbas, that is less than 10 per cent of the territory of Ukraine and we are approaching 150 days,’ he told the BBC.

‘Russia is struggling to take that territory, and it is struggling because of the courage and determination of the Ukrainian armed forces.’

Admiral Sir Tony Radakin told BBC One’s Sunday Morning show Ukraine’s army ‘absolutely’ believes it will win the war in the face of a ‘struggling’ Russia

Admiral Sir Radakin said that when the Kremlin began the war, it wanted to take Ukraine’s cities within the first 30 days. 

‘Russia had the ambition to create fractures and to apply pressure to Nato,’ he explained.

‘This is Russia as a challenge to the world order, Russia is failing in all of those ambitions. Russia is a more diminished nation than it was at the beginning of February.’ 

Despite this, Admiral Sir Radakin has said the next prime minister should know that Russia is ‘the biggest threat’ the UK is facing. 

Admiral Sir Radakin said that when the Kremlin began the war, it wanted to take Ukraine’s cities within the first 30 days

Emergency services attend the horrific scene in central Vinnytsya on Thursday afternoon

Horror footage showed the scale of the destruction in the south-west Ukrainian town of Vinnytsya

‘Its land forces are probably less of a threat in the short term because of that degradation, that depletion that we’re seeing with their struggle in Ukraine,’ he said.

‘But Russia continues to be a nuclear power, it’s got cyber capabilities, it’s got space capabilities, and it’s got particular programmes under water so it can threaten the underwater cables that allow the world’s information to transit around the whole globe.’

He added that the next prime minister will be briefed on the war in Ukraine and reminded of the ‘extraordinary responsibility they have with the UK as a nuclear power’.

Admiral Sir Radakin has said the next prime minister should know that Russia is ‘the biggest threat’ the UK is facing

‘We will always give them a brief on the current situation so they are aware of where we have our armed forces,’ he said.

‘That’s dominated by Ukraine and the support that we are providing to Ukraine but we also try to step back and give a wider threat picture.

‘And then we have to remind the prime minister of the extraordinary responsibility they have with the UK as a nuclear power, and that is part of the initiation for a new British prime minister and that becomes the focus.’ 

Asked what Britain’s armed forces would look like if defence spending increased to three per cent of GDP, he added: ‘I think they would be even more modern and they would have even more punch and they would have even more impact around the world, and that’s clearly a choice for government.’

Shoigu’s ominous threat came as more details emerged of the tragic victims of Thursday’s sickening Russian strike. Pictured: bomb damage in Dnipro, eastern Ukraine

Liza Dmitrieva, four, was in her pram when a ship-fired missile struck, killing her instantly

It comes as Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu gave the order to dramatically increase so-called shock and awe attacks on Ukraine yesterday.

He claimed Kremlin forces must ‘exclude the possibility of the Kyiv regime inflicting massive rocket and artillery strikes on civilian infrastructure and residents of the Donbas and other regions,’ according to reports in Moscow.

It followed an on-the-ground inspection by Putin’s trusty defence minister — and a National Security Council meeting led by Vladimir Putin.

Shoigu ‘gave instructions to further increase the actions of [military] groups in all operational areas’, local reports stated.

It was unclear whether the minister’s talks with military chiefs were in Russia or occupied Ukraine.

Alina Kisel, 25, was at work in a bank when the Russian missile hit, killing her

Shoigu’s ominous threat came as more details emerged of the tragic victims of Thursday’s sickening Russian strike on city Vinnytsya, western Ukraine.

The death toll now stands at 24.

Pictures showed a seven-year-old boy whose remains could only be recognised from his DNA after he was hit by one of Putin’s missiles while attending a doctor’s appointment.

Maxim Zharyi died with his mother Victoria Rekuta, 35, a qualified dentist, in the shocking attack on a city hundreds of miles from the eastern frontline.

The pair had been to the Neuromed clinic, which was struck by a missile fired from a Russian warship in the Black Sea.

Ksenia Denisyuk, Victoria’s friend, said: ‘He was a wonder child, bright and kind.

‘Together they went to a clinic.

‘This was the moment when the terrorist country [Russia] hit the medical centre.

‘Maxim could be identified only with a DNA test.

Kirill Pyakhin, eight, was waiting for his grandmother in a car with his uncle. He was killed

‘The whole world should know that Russia is a terrorist state.’

Another boy, Kirill Pyakhin, eight, died in the rocket strike, as he waited in a parked car with his uncle while his grandmother went to get cash from a nearby bank.

This was the same attack in which little Liza Dmitrieva, four, was killed in her pushchair and her mother Irina, 33, left gravely wounded. 

Alina Kisel, 35, was also killed as a tree fell due to the missile strike.

She was in the backyard of the bank where she worked and ‘died instantly’.

Four other bank workers were hospitalised.

Meanwhile Shoigu presented the Gold Star Hero of the Russia medals to Colonel-General Alexander Lapin and Major-General Esedulla Abachev.

A man sorts through his belongings in the aftermath of Thursday’s rocket attack on Vinnytsya

A 70-year-old woman was among three victims in an airstrike on Chuhuiv near Kharkiv overnight.

A regional police official said Russia fired four missiles from near western city of Belgorod at around 3.30am.

The strike damaged a two-story residential building, a school and a shop, Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Synehubov said. 

Ukraine’s shortened and straightened defensive line in the east has successfully repelled Russian attacks, according to the British Ministry of Defence.

Its daily intelligence update this morning stated that the ‘Ukrainian defence has been successful in repulsing Russian attacks since Lysychansk was ceded and the Ukrainian defensive line was shortened and straightened.’

It added: ‘This has allowed for the concentration of force and fires against reduced Russian attacks and has been instrumental in reducing Russia’s momentum.’ 

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