After claiming possession of the salt-mining town of Soledar in eastern Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that the military operation in that country had gathered speed and expressed his hope that his army would continue to produce victories.

The invasion of Ukraine by Russia on February 24 has led to one of the deadliest conflicts in Europe since World War Two and the largest standoff between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

Russia said on Friday that its forces had taken control of Soledar, a rare success for Moscow after months of battlefield reverses.

“The dynamic is positive,” Putin told Rossiya 1 state television when asked about the taking of Soledar. “Everything is developing within the framework of the plan of the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff.”

“And I hope that our fighters will please us even more with the results of their combat,” Putin said.

Putin now casts the war in Ukraine as an existential battle with an aggressive and arrogant West, and has said that Russia will use all available means to protect itself and its people against any aggressor.

The United States and its allies have condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as an imperial land grab, while Ukraine has vowed to fight until the last Russian soldier is ejected from its territory.

On Saturday, a regional governor in Ukraine claimed the battle to keep Soledar in Ukrainian hands was still going on. According to the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, it is extremely doubtful that Ukrainian forces still occupy positions inside Soledar.

The situation in Soledar could not immediately be confirmed by Reuters.

Neither side keeps current records on the number of people killed in the conflict.