International- A Russian journalist admitted on state TV that Ukrainian forces are making gains in the south.
- Such confessions are rare in Russian state media, which is dominated by Kremlin propagandists.
A prominent Russian journalist delivered a rare confession on state TV, admitting that Ukrainian forces are liberating territory in the southern Kherson region.
"In the Kherson region, we have lost 17 settlements," war correspondent Alexander Sladkov said Tuesday, according to a CNN report.
"This doesn't mean that we've collapsed like a house of cards. These mistakes aren't gigantic strategic failures. We are still learning," he continued, according to the report. "I know this is hard to hear in our eighth month of the special operation. But we are reporters. We are waiting for reinforcements."
The reference to "special operation" is a nod to the term that Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kremlin leadership, and state-affiliated media use to describe the devastating war in Ukraine.
Sladkov's mention of "reinforcements" is a call to Putin's partial military mobilization announced last month, which will see hundreds of thousands of reservists drafted to fight in Ukraine.
With Putin's crackdown on the free press in Russia, the country's state media has been dominated by Kremlin propagandists who often reflect false and baseless claims made by Putin and his leadership about their military's progress in Ukraine.
The rare admission of a setback on Russian state TV comes as Ukrainian troops continue advancing along the war's eastern and southern fronts.
"Ukrainian forces continued to make deliberate progress in the Kharkiv region, and also further south around Kherson," Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, Laura Cooper said at a briefing on Tuesday. "The Ukrainian counter-offensive in Kherson has made significant advances over the last 24 hours, and Ukrainian forces continue to liberate villages as they press forward."
A senior military official told reporters on Monday that Ukraine's counteroffensive in the Kherson region has appeared to push Russian forces into a "defensive crouch."
Meanwhile, the Pentagon on Tuesday announced a new $625 million military aid package for Ukraine, which includes four High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) — a much-celebrated rocket artillery system that Ukraine has used to strike key Russian positions.