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Putin to visit injured Russian soldiers at Moscow hospital

Putin and the danger of personalist rule

Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit the soldiers that were injured in the war against Ukraine in a Moscow hospital.

“He is visiting them and talking to them,’’ Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday, according to the Interfax news agency.

Meanwhile, Peskov dismissed speculation that Putin would use the visit to announce a new strategy for the war in Ukraine.

However, there was no change of direction in the “special military operation,’’ the spokesman said, using a term that the Kremlin uses for the war.

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He added that the president was merely “interested in the issue of how those who were injured during the special military operation are being cared for’’.

This was Putin’s first visit to the injured since the start of the invasion on February 24. The Russian side rarely gave details on its dead and injured.

The last time the Defence Ministry published figures was at the end of March when it said that 1,351 Russian soldiers had been killed.

Kiev puts the number of Russians killed at almost 30,000, while, the figures cannot be independently verified.