Russia has acknowledged difficulties and mistakes in its war of aggression against Ukraine, but has announced that fighting will continue. “Despite all the difficulties, the military special operation will continue to the end,” Deputy Secretary of the National Security Council Rashid Nurgaliyev said on Wednesday.

Despite the arms deliveries from the West to Ukraine, the operation is continuing. All “tasks – including demilitarization and denazification as well as the protection of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics – will be fully implemented,” said the former interior minister.

The head of the Russian republic of Chechnya in the North Caucasus, Ramzan Kadyrov, even spoke of “mistakes” at the start of the war against Ukraine that began on February 24. “In the beginning there were mistakes, there were some shortcomings, but now everything is 100% according to plan,” Kadyrov said at a political forum. The tasks set by President Vladimir Putin would be fulfilled in full.

Kadyrov’s troops are fighting in the eastern Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Donetsk. He said around 200 other volunteers had signed up to serve in Ukraine. The Chechen fighters, who were also deployed in Syria, are notorious for their brutality.