Kremlin says invasion has been slow because it is concerned about civilians

Russia attempted to paper over its lackluster progress in Ukraine on Tuesday by saying the invasion had gone slower than expected because of the Russian army’s concern for protecting civilians.

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu told a meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, an alliance between Russia and five other former Soviet countries, that Moscow was “not chasing deadlines” as its campaign in Ukraine drags into its third month.

“Cease-fires are being declared and humanitarian corridors are being created in order to get people out of surrounded settlements,” Shoigu said, according to Russian state broadcaster RT.

“Of course, this slows down the pace of the offensive, but this is done deliberately to avoid casualties among the civilian population.”

Shoigu said it was the Ukrainian military, not the Russians, who were targeting civilian structures in widely reported attacks and that aid to Kyiv from its Western allies were a sign that they were worried about its imminent defeat.

Russian forces in Ukraine shifted to indiscriminately bombing cities after its initial blitz in the first month of the invasion failed to capture any major cities, like the capital of Kyiv. Ukrainian officials have reported thousands of civilian casualties, like those who died in the siege of Mariupol.

There have also been allegations of systemic sexual assault of Ukrainian women by Russian soldiers, which authorities plan to present to the International Criminal Court, which recognized rape as a war crime in 2008.

The ICC has already opened its own investigation into alleged war crimes by Russian forces.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky dismissed the Kremlin official’s claims as “absolutely unreal” and mocked them for their slow progress in the face of fierce Ukrainian resistance.

“After three months of searching for an explanation why they failed to break Ukraine, they came up with nothing better than to claim that they had planned to do so,” Zelensky said in a video on Facebook.