Vladimir Putin convinced Moscow is winning months-long war against Kyiv

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday he is convinced Moscow is winning its war against Kyiv, despite battlefield setbacks, while his defence minister proposed expanding the ranks of Russian troops to counter NATO's Nordic expansion.

"I am sure that step by step we will achieve all our goals," Putin said on Wednesday in a televised speech at a meeting of top officials at the Russian Defence Ministry.

Putin began his remarks with a moment of silence for the soldiers killed in the war, which he unleashed nearly 10 months ago with an invasion from the north, south and east.

Since then, Russian troops have retreated from Kyiv amid heavy losses as Ukrainian forces retook territory in the east. But weeks of Russian airstrikes and drone attacks have left critical infrastructure in ruins across Ukraine, leading to severe shortages of electricity, heat and water.

Putin said the war served as a valuable experience for further building up Russia's military. He compared the fighting in Ukraine to the Napoleonic Wars as well as World Wars I and II.

He called for a faster pace in rearming and modernizing the military. As an example, Putin cited the use of drones.

"Every soldier must have the opportunity to get information from drones." There are "no financial constraints" on further upgrading the army, he said.

Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu then announced plans to significantly expand the country's armed forces. He proposed raising the number of soldiers to 1.5 million, representing an increase of 350,000.

Shoigu also wants to increase the number of volunteer troops on a temporary contract to 695,000. Furthermore, he said the age of conscription should expanded upward to 30.

Shoigu said the measures were a necessary response to plans for NATO enlargement. He called for new units to be set up in north-western Russia, on the border with the potential new NATO members Sweden and Finland. Putin said he agreed with Shoigu's proposals.

Elsewhere, Russian forces entered the city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine after months of fierce fighting, according to a British military intelligence assessment.

"Russian infantry likely now has a foothold in the eastern industrial areas of the town, and at times has advanced into the residential district of the city. Street fighting is ongoing," it wrote.

The British noted that the war has not seen intense fighting in built up areas since this summer.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who briefly visited Bakhmut on Tuesday, decribed it as the "hottest point" on the entire 1,300-kilometre front line.

In the Kherson region in the south of the country, the Ukrainian armed forces destroyed a large Russian artillery position on an airfield near Kakhovka, according to the Ukrainian general staff.

Meanwhile the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, was expected to arrive in Moscow on Thursday for negotiations about the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, which is occupied by Russian forces.

The negotiations will cover Grossi's proposal to establish a security zone around the embattled nuclear plant, according to Mikhail Ulyanov, the Russian representative to the Vienna-based IAEA. A spokesperson for the IAEA confirmed Grossi's trip to Moscow.

Grossi was set to conduct talks with representatives of the Russian Foreign Ministry, the National Guard of Russia and the Russian state Rosatom nuclear agency, among others.

Putin, however, does not plan to make time to meet with Grossi, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

In October, Grossi met with Putin in Moscow and with Zelensky in Kyiv in an attempt to mediate control of the nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, which has been the subject of fighting for months and has repeatedly come under fire, raising concerns about a potential mishap or disaster.

Grossi is calling for both Russia and Ukraine to refrain from shelling the plant in the future and has demanded that Russia not station military weapons at the facility.

The IAEA board of governors called for the withdrawal of Russian troops from the nuclear facility in November, however Grossi did not include a Russian withdrawal in his plan, saying that he views demilitarization in and around Zaporizhzhya as difficult to implement.

Russia has rejected repeated international calls for troops to be withdrawn from the nuclear power plant, Europe's largest, but said it was willing to conduct talks on the security situation.