Vladimir Putin is "failing on all of his military strategic objectives", a senior Royal Navy officer has said.
The Russian President has not managed to take control of Ukraine, including its capital Kyiv, weaken NATO or break international resolve and lacks the manpower to win the war, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin told BBC's Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme.
Sir Tony, the current Chief of Defence, said: "At the very outset, we said that this was a strategic error by President Putin and strategic errors lead to strategic consequences.
"And in this instance, it's strategic failure. Putin is failing on all of his military strategic objectives, he wanted to subjugate Ukraine, that's not going to happen.
Sir Tony said Putin had wanted to take control of the capital Kyiv, but was defeated early on, while his mission to weaken NATO also failed, with the union now looking stronger as Finland and Sweden plan to join.
He continued: "[Putin] wants to break the international resolve. Well, actually that strengthened over this period, and he's under pressure, his problems are mounting.
"He's always had a problem in terms of crewing the equipment that he's got. He hasn't got sufficient manpower. His forces are thin on the ground.
"And we're also seeing a magnificent Ukrainian armed forces who have been courageous, they're fighting for their country, and they've embraced the international support that all of us are providing."
With Putin struggling with manpower, the President has resorted to signing up four hundred hardened criminals, according to video footage.
As reported by The Mirror, a video shows the tough prisoners from penal colonies in Tambov region who have signed up as fighters reportedly taken by a dozen jail vans to a “training camp” in the south of Russia.
After perfunctory military instruction the murderers, sex offenders, burglars and other convicts will be despatched to the frontline following the mass jail release.
Deserters have been warned they will be summarily “shot” but those who survive six months will be pardoned by Putin, and allowed to resume their lives no matter how heinous their crimes.
The man in charge of the drive to recruit jail inmates as fighters in Wagner private army - which operates under the orders of Putin’s defence ministry - has told Russians to stop complaining.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, 61, a close Putin crony, warned: “Those who do not like this…. send your own children to the front."
So far Putin has balked at launching full-scale mobilisation under which all males over 18 could be sent to the war, but there are rumours he is poised to announce a partial mobilisation in certain regions.
