Putin on brink as Russians rage over Ukraine – 'We are losing the war!'

Vladimir Putin is being warned by a top US general and his own side that he is “miserably” losing the war with Ukraine. Retired four star American General Jack Keane spoke of a “turnaround” in the conflict in Ukraine.

“Russia has started its spring and summer offensive and it has failed – miserably,” said the ex-Vice Chief of Staff of the US Army, now chairman of the Institute for the Study of War.

“They are losing more territory than they have the ability to take. And that means that Ukraine is on the offensive and is retaking territory.”

He follows Aleksey Chadaev, a former Kremlin adviser and head of the Ushkuynik drone-warfare centre, who warned Putin’s course could lead to “a full-scale defeat”.

He argued for Russia to accept a ceasefire and regroup. Prominent Russian war correspondent Anastasia Kashevarova complained bitterly that “the enemy is hitting everything that moves on the roads.

“Ukraine’s policy is: the more Russians die, the better.” She picked out air defence failures to prevent hits on naval port Kronstadt, oil refineries and Vladimir Putin’s hometown St Petersburg during an international economic forum.

“They are waging war against us, while we are ****ing off a limp ****,” she stormed.

“Forgive me, but I am, like most Russians, to put it mildly, bewildered by what is happening. Men, my dears, what are you doing? Are you going to fight? Where are our ‘systematic and consistent’ strikes?”

She warned that more Russian repression against people speaking out against the Putin regime’s failures in the war, or blocking the internet, would not solve the problem.

“Of course, you can shut us all up, imprison us,” she taunted.

But “blocking the internet will not solve the issue of the growing swarm of [drones] flying deep into the rear.

“The enemy will continue to kill us. There is no longer any need to open the internet to know that something has hit somewhere.”

New footage showed desperation in Moscow as a Pantsir-SMDE-E air defence system was lowered by helicopter onto the rooftop of an elite apartment high rise in Sokolniki district.

The aim is to protect against Ukrainian drone strikes, and an increasing number of tower blocks in the Russian capital are deploying the weapons systems.

Amid Putin’s refusal to engage in talks with Volodymyr Zelensky to end the war, Ukraine staged punishing new overnight strikes on Russia.

They attacked the Semikolodezyanskaya oil depot in Lenino, occupied Crimea, igniting it in fire.

Petrol shortages in the annexed territory are causing mayhem with strict rationing imposed and car-owners forced to dodge drones and drive to the Russian mainland to fill up.

Ukrainian drones also hit railway infrastructure and set a substation on fire in Rodakove, in the occupied Luhansk region.

This followed the most massive attacks of the war on Putin’s hometown St Petersburg in recent days. Russia killed one and left 25 others injured in attacks in the Zaporizhzhia region, and one person died in Odessa.

Zelensky is due in London on Sunday for talks with Sir Keir Starmer and the leaders of France and Germany.