Putin pushed off meetings with top military officials as the Kremlin tries to deflect blame for Russia's disastrous retreat

• Vladimir Putin put off meetings with his top military officials as Russia suffers defeats in Ukraine.
• The Kremlin has been working to deflect blame for Putin's recent defeats in Moscow's war with Ukraine, a US think tank said.

Vladimir Putin has put off meetings with his top military officials as the Kremlin works to deflect blame for the Russian president's recent defeats in Moscow's war with Ukraine.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, called Putin's postponement of meetings with military brass "a bizarre decision in the face of the military operational and defense industrial crisis facing Russia."

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the state-owned TASS news agency over the weekend that Putin tabled meetings with the leadership of the Russian Defense Ministry and representatives of the Russian defense industry in the city of Sochi.

"The Sochi meetings are needed. They will be continued," Peskov said, insisting that the meetings will take place at a later date, according to TASS.

The move to put off the meetings came as Ukrainian forces reclaimed territory from Russian occupation in a stunning counteroffensive in the nearly seven-month-long war.

In recent days, Ukrainian forces have recaptured large swaths of territory from Russian control in the Kharkiv region, Ukraine's second-largest city.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday that Ukrainian forces have reclaimed more than 2,300 square miles of territory from Russian occupation since the beginning of this month.

According to an assessment published on Tuesday by the Institute for the Study of War, the Kremlin is trying to clear Putin of any responsibility for Russia's disastrous retreat and instead place the blame on "underinformed military advisors within Putin's circle."

The Kremlin's acknowledgment of defeat in Kharkiv "shows that Putin is willing and able to recognize and even accept a Russian defeat at least in some circumstances and focus on deflecting blame from himself," ISW said.

The think tank added that Kremlin officials and state media propagandists' recognition of recent defeats in Ukraine mark the first time Moscow has openly acknowledged a defeat since Putin launched the unprovoked war in February.

"The Kremlin's acknowledgment of the defeat is part of an effort to mitigate and deflect criticism for such a devastating failure away from Russian President Vladimir Putin and onto the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and the uniformed military command," ISW said.