(JustPatriots.com)- According to reports, Russian President Vladimir Putin may avoid speaking to the public in the wake of Russia’s string of defeats in Ukraine.
Two unnamed Kremlin sources told the local business newspaper RBC that Putin might not hold the annual press conference that he has done every December since 2012.
The Russian president holds an annual question and answer session called “Direct Line with Vladimir Putin” in which Russian citizens can ask questions of the president. The event airs on every Russian TV and radio channel and is directed by the Kremlin press secretary.
But according to the sources, the usual preparations for this annual press conference “are not yet underway.”
One source said the decision on whether or not to go forward with the event will depend on several factors, not the least of which is the “situation in the special military operation zone” (AKA Ukraine).
On November 11, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that no final decision on the annual press conference has been made as yet.
On November 9, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu ordered Russian forces to withdraw from Kherson city. By the end of the week, over 30,000 troops had retreated south of the Dnieper River.
That weekend, Ukrainian forces retook Kherson city, marking a significant defeat for Russian forces since its invasion of Ukraine in February.
In his nightly video address on November 12, President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed that the country would see “many more such greetings” as his forces liberate other cities and villages still under Russian occupation. Zelensky assured the people that no one would be forgotten or left behind.
The retaking of Kherson is just the latest in a series of battlefield embarrassments for Moscow, where, just six weeks before, President Putin officially annexed the Kherson region along with three other provinces in southern and eastern Ukraine.
