After the Russian army began to lose the occupied territories due to the counter-offensive of Ukraine, and the 10,000-strong group in the Kharkov region was under the threat of encirclement, Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to convene the Security Council. The Moscow Times writes about it.

According to the publication, 12 senior officials will take part in the operational meeting, which will be held in the middle of the day, on Friday.. These are the heads of all power structures (the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the FSB, the Foreign Intelligence Service), the heads of both houses of parliament, as well as Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, former President Dmitry Medvedev and Secretary Nikolai Patrushev.

The publication adds that, according to presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin will not comment on the course of hostilities, as a result of which, according to Kyiv, the Russian army lost Balakliya, a city with a population of about 30 thousand people, located 90 km from the regional center.

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday that since the beginning of autumn, as a result of the counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, dozens of settlements on the territory of more than a thousand square kilometers have been fired..

Analysts at the US Institute for the Study of War believe that following Balakleya, Ukrainian troops can take Kupyansk within 72 hours, a key city, the loss of which will further weaken the supply chains of Russian forces.. There is also a growing panic among Russian units in the north over the pace of Ukrainian military advances and their advance into Kupyansk..

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At the same time, the successes of the Ukrainian army in the Kharkiv-Izyum direction led to a loss of confidence in the command on a scale that has not been seen since May, when Russian forces failed while crossing the Seversky Donets River.