Russia fights against Ukraine 200 times longer than planned, lost 5,000 tanks – UK to OSCE

He said this during a meeting of the OSCE Forum for Security Co-operation in Vienna on Wednesday, Ukrinform reports. 

"Russia’s horrendous war against Ukraine has now lasted 200 times longer than Russia had predicted it would. The incredible defense of Ukraine is the result of the tremendous courage and resilience of the Ukrainian people," the statement read.

He stressed that if Russia succeeds in replenishing its stockpile of cruise missiles, it will again try to strike directly at Ukraine's energy infrastructure. At the same time, according to Aukott, Russia "will continue to mask its myriad military failures to enable this debacle to continue". 

"Even in this diplomatic Forum, Russia will threaten to destroy Ukrainian aircraft, whilst at the same time Russia continues to shoot its own aircraft out the sky; it will talk of military advances whilst now only having control of half of the Ukrainian territory it did at the beginning of the campaign; and it may even show a handful of NATO vehicles on the obligatory slideshow, never acknowledging that Russia has now lost 5,000 tanks in this calamitous campaign," predicted Mr. Aukott.

He reminded that Russia now only cooperates with terrorists and dictators.

"Russia may proclaim a new world order; but this is a world order in which Russia invites the Hamas terrorist group to Moscow, following Hamas’s brutal murder of over 1,400 Israeli citizens; it is the world order of allying with Iran, the provider of Shahed one way attack drones which have been used extensively by Russia to kill Ukrainian civilians and attack critical infrastructure; and the development of North Korea as Russia’s new strategic arms partner and provider of military aid," the diplomat said.

Aukott stressed that such cooperation only shows how low Russia has fallen.

"Mixing with such regimes mark the depths to which Russia has sunk in an effort to maintain its military in the field. Russia does this while it continues to suffer devastating losses both around the town of Avdiivka and in the campaign more broadly," the official explained.

• Since the beginning of August, the DPRK has transferred more than 1 million artillery shells and other weapons to Russia in 10 batches, South Korean intelligence has found.