“Putin’s announcements are just bluster”, the US general criticizes the Russian president’s statements

the ads of Putin promises new missiles and more troops in Ukraine, they are “probably a lot of mess”is convinced of Lieutenant General Mark Hertlingformer Commanding General of the US Army Europe, now retired.

“I think most of these ads are braggadocio,” Hertling said in an interview with CNN on new strategic plan for Russian military strengthening that Putin announced in the last few hours that includes new hypersonic and ballistic missiles and the increase in military personnel up to one and a half million men, saying goodbye to any funding limit for the army.

“Putin has been trying to mobilize new forces for some time, they are even mobilizing 18-year-olds but many young people are leaving the country because Russian soldiers on the ground have lost faith in their leadership,” said the former US army officer. , already commander of the Seventh Army.

According to Hertling, even managing to recruit more personnel to send to the front, Russians lack proper equipment and training face the war. Despite trying to mobilize new forces, according to the general, Putin has to deal with the troops’ lack of confidence in their leaders and the awareness of the military that they do not have adequate equipment for the battlefield.

At the same time, according to Hertling, it also the announcement of the deployment of the Patriots to Ukraine raised unrealistic expectations about the possible implications of war in the coming weeks. “It takes months to train troops on how to use the complex system,” Hertling said, also noting that even these weapons systems are not foolproof.

“These systems don’t move on the battlefield,” emphasized Hertling, adding, “You put them in a location that defends your most strategic objective, like a city, like Kiev and that’s it. If anyone thinks this is going to be a pervasive system across an 800km border between Ukraine and Russia, they just don’t know how the system works.”