(Moscow) Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday ordered the mobilization of 300,000 separatists to give fresh impetus to his offensive in Ukraine, saying he was ready to use “all means” of his vast arsenal against the West.
Posted at 6:11 am.
“It’s not nonsense,” said Mr. Putin has accused the West of wanting to “destroy” Russia and is using the “nuclear threat” against it, implying that he is ready to use nuclear weapons.
Photo via Associated Press
Vladimir Putin
The partial demobilization, announced during a rare address to the nation and taking effect on Wednesday, represents a major escalation in the conflict, where Moscow’s forces have suffered several setbacks in recent weeks.
It comes a day after Russia announced annexation “referendums” in four regions of eastern and southern Ukraine over the weekend, a move strongly condemned by the Americans and Europeans.
Several Western officials joined the regional mobilization on Wednesday. Putin was seen admitting his “weakness” as his forces retreated in the face of Ukrainian counter-attacks.
In a pre-recorded televised speech on Wednesday morning, Mr. Putin said.
“We are only talking about partial mobilization”, he insisted to reassure people who fear general mobilization.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said 300,000 reservists were affected by the mobilization order, “1.1% of mobilized resources.”
It remains to be seen how the Russian military will be able to accommodate, train and equip these hundreds of thousands of people, while its offensive in Ukraine has revealed serious logistical problems.
Jailed Kremlin dissident Alexei Navalny criticized the move, saying it would lead to “a great tragedy and a huge amount of death”.
“admitting defeat”?
British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace described the partial demobilization as an “admission of defeat” while Ukraine was “winning”.
It was “a sign of weakness,” said US Ambassador to Kyiv Bridget Brink. A “severe and sinister” move for Berlin.
The mobilization could signal an escalation of violence for Ukrainians already severely tested by the seven-month conflict.
In Kharkiv (northeast), Ukraine’s second city near the Russian border, Svetlana, 63, urges Russians to defy mobilization orders and “finally wake up” as her residents clear debris from a building hit by a missile overnight. .
Neighbor Galina, 50, resents the Russians, who say they want to “liberate” her. “What do you want to free us from? From our home? From our relatives? From our friends?”, she says.
It is precisely the recent development of the situation in the Kharkiv region that Mr. That appears to have prompted Putin to order a partial demobilization, a move rejected by the Kremlin, which until then is trying to maintain normalcy in Russia. Despite the conflict.
The Russian military has actually suffered setbacks in the face of Ukrainian counter-attacks in Kharkiv (northeast), where Moscow’s forces have been forced to give up a lot of ground, as well as in Kherson (south).
Mr Shoigu said on Wednesday that the Russian military had lost 5,937 soldiers since the offensive began, an official figure much lower than Ukrainian and Western estimates of losses in the tens of thousands.
“no flower”
On the ground on Wednesday, fighting and shelling continued, with Ukrainian officials accusing Russia of again bombing the site of the Zaporizhia power plant (southern Ukraine), the largest in Europe.
Putin’s speech on Wednesday marked an escalation of rhetoric against the West, which he accused of wanting to “destroy our country”.
“Nuclear blackmail is also used […] “I would like to remind those who make such statements that there are various methods of destruction in our country,” the Russian president said.
“We will certainly use all means at our disposal to protect Russia and our people,” he continued. “I mean all the way […] It’s not nonsense,” he insisted.
Its Defense Minister Mr. Soyko bluntly asserted that Russia “is not at war with Ukraine like the West.”
Ahead of the regional mobilization, Tuesday’s announcement that “referendums” would be held in Moscow-controlled regions of Ukraine from September 23 to 27 signaled a hardening of the conflict.
Russian military doctrine in particular provides for the possibility of resorting to nuclear strikes if territories considered by Moscow to be Russian are attacked.
The elections will be held in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that make up the Donbass (east), and the occupied territories of Kherson and Zaporizhia in the south.
The votes were immediately criticized by Kiev as “fake referendums” and by its Western allies.
