Putin spoke to the media for the first time and called the war in Ukraine a war

Putin spoke to a small group of journalists - the so-called Kremlin pool - instead of the big concluding press conference that he holds every year. With them he summed up this year's results.

Talking to journalists, he said that Russia "had a pretty good year. Though he admitted that there are no perfect situations

In addition, the Kremlin dictator vaguely admitted that the situation is uncertain. Without naming specific events, such as the escape of the Russian army from the Kharkov region or the retreat from Kherson, Putin said that it is difficult to fix the situation now

The situation is developing very dynamically, so it was difficult to fix right at a specific moment in time the results and specific plans for the near future.

He also went on to insinuate to himself and to convince others that the Patriot system, which the US announced yesterday had been handed over, was obsolete and Russia could handle it

Eventually, in response to a question from a Russian propagandist, Putin said the word "war", referring to the confrontation between Russia and Ukraine. It is worth noting that in Russia there are real prison sentences and fines of thousands of dollars for this term

Our goal is not to spin this flywheel of military conflict, but rather to end this war. That is what we are aiming for and what we will be aiming for. And the sooner the better, of course," Putin said in the tenth month of the war, after trying to take over Kiev in three days