Russian President Vladimir Putin holds the annual meeting of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights, via video link in Moscow, Russia December 7, 2022.
Mikhail Metzel | Sputnik | Reuters
President Vladimir Putin has sought proposals from the commanders of his armed forces on how they think Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine should proceed, during a visit to the operation’s headquarters, the Kremlin said on Saturday.
A series of defeats in 10 months of fighting, leading to Russian withdrawals from areas across the capital Kyiv and Ukraine’s second city Kharkiv and most recently from the town of Kherson, has forced Putin to call up reservists and generated rare public criticism from military bloggers and a few allies.
For the reason that appointment in October of Air Force General Sergei Surovikin to guide the campaign, Russian ground forces have focused more on defense than attack, while waves of air strikes on cities have left tens of millions of Ukrainian civilians without heat, light or water for days on end as winter sets in.
In video footage released by the Kremlin on Saturday, Putin presided at a gathering of around a dozen people at a circular table, flanked by Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov — each of whom have been heavily criticized by hawkish commentators.
Putin was then shown at the top of one other conference table on the joint task force headquarters, inviting suggestions from a row of military commanders.
“We are going to hearken to the commanders in each operational direction, and I would really like to listen to your proposals on our immediate and medium-term actions,” Putin said.
Surovikin was also shown attending the meetings in still photographs on the Kremlin website.
Putin spent the entire of Friday at the duty force headquarters, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Interfax news agency.
No other details of Putin’s visit or the situation of the headquarters were reported.