Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested Tuesday that he could order his troops to try to seize more land in Ukraine to protect Russian territory on the border, while asserting that Ukrainian forces had suffered “catastrophic” losses in a new counteroffensive.

The Russian leader made some of his most detailed remarks in months about the war in an open meeting with military journalists and bloggers, just as Ukrainian officials claim they have captured a handful of villages in the early stages of a counteroffensive.

The meeting, which lasted more than two hours, came after Russian missile strikes in central Ukraine killed at least 11 people overnight.

Putin also said he wasn’t contemplating a new mobilization, but didn’t rule it out, and reiterated Russia’s claim that Ukraine was responsible for blowing up a Dnieper River dam that caused vast flooding on both sides of the front line in southern Ukraine last week.

Putin said Ukraine’s counteroffensive has been unsuccessful and that its forces suffered “catastrophic” losses. He asserted that Ukraine lost 160 tanks and over 360 other armored vehicles, while Russia only lost 54 tanks since Kyiv began the new assault. Those claims could not be immediately verified, and Ukrainian officials typically do not comment on losses.

Referring to alleged Ukrainian incursions and shelling of Russia’s Belgorod and other border regions, Putin said Russia’s military would take moves to stop such attacks, and if Kyiv persists, “We will have to consider creating a sanitary zone in Ukraine to prevent it from striking our territory.”

It was not clear whether Russia could afford to risk expanding its gains in Ukraine as it faces an evolving Ukrainian counteroffensive in several sectors of the more than 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line.

In recent weeks, Russia’s border areas have come under increasing attack, with the Kremlin blaming Ukrainian forces for incursions of fighters and drone strikes. Local leaders in Russia have pleaded with the Kremlin to do more to protect their residents, some of whom have been evacuated to safer areas. Ukrainian authorities haven’t confirmed Kyiv’s involvement in such attacks, but have obliquely welcomed them.

Putin acknowledged that Russian authorities should have foreseen such attacks and been prepared better to repel them. Last fall, Russian troops withdrew from broad swathes they controlled in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region bordering Russia under the brunt of a Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Also Tuesday, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister Hanna Maliar told Ukrainian TV that its forces are continuing their offensive in four areas in the south and east.

The head of Ukraine’s ground troops said the country’s forces were “moving forward” outside Bakhmut, in Ukraine’s east. Oleksandr Syrskyi wrote on Telegram that Russian forces are “losing positions on the flanks.”

For weeks, Ukrainian officials have been reporting small gains west of Bakhmut, which was largely devastated in the war’s longest and bloodiest battle before Moscow’s forces took control last month.

The advances have amounted to only small bits of territory and underscore the difficulty of the battle ahead for Ukrainian forces, who will have to fight meter by meter to regain the roughly one-fifth of their country under Russian occupation.

Earlier Tuesday, Ukrainian authorities said at least 11 people were killed and 34 wounded overnight in a Russian missile strike on the city of Kryvyi Rih, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s hometown.

Russian forces have unleashed overnight missile strikes repeatedly against targets across Ukraine in recent weeks, and Tuesday’s toll was among the highest from a single attack. In late April, missile strikes hit an apartment building in the central city of Uman, killing 23 people, including six children.

Images from the latest missile attack relayed by Zelenskyy on his Telegram channel showed firefighters battling a blaze as flames poked through broken windows in a damaged apartment building. Charred and damaged vehicles littered the ground.

“More terrorist missiles,” he wrote. “Russian killers continue their war against residential buildings, ordinary cities and people.”

Without providing details of the locations or timing, the Russian Defense Ministry said Russian forces used long-range air-launched cruise missiles to hit Ukrainian military reserves and depots holding Western weapons and ammunition.

The governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Serhiy Lysak, wrote on Telegram that the bodies of seven people were recovered from a private company’s warehouse, and “another four destinies were cut short” at the apartment building. He said search operations had been called off.

Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, meanwhile, was attacked with Iranian-made Shahed drones, and the surrounding region was shelled, local Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said on Telegram. The shelling wounded two civilians in the town of Shevchenkove, southeast of Kharkiv, and a drone strike damaged two buildings in Kharkiv.

The Kyiv military administration reported that the capital came under fire as well on Tuesday, but the incoming missiles were destroyed by air defenses and there were no immediate reports of any casualties there.

Air defenses overnight shot down 10 out of 14 cruise missiles and one of four Iranian-made Shahed drones launched by Russian forces, Ukraine’s General Staff said on its Facebook page.

Over the last day, nearly a dozen front-line towns and villages in Ukrainian-held areas of Donetsk came under increased shelling as Ukrainian troops pushed forward, Zelenskyy’s office said.

Also Tuesday, the Russian Defense Ministry published a video showing what it said was a German-made Leopard 2 tank and U.S.-made Bradley fighting vehicle captured from Ukrainian forces. According to the ministry, the video was shot by Russian soldiers after fierce fighting in Zaporizhzhia, and a soldier is seen pointing at the immobilized vehicles. It wasn’t immediately possible to verify the video’s authenticity.

(AP)