KAlmost seven months after the attack on Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered partial mobilization in Russia. In a televised speech broadcast on Wednesday morning, Putin said he made the decision based on a proposal from the Defense Ministry and the General Staff of the Armed Forces and signed the corresponding decree. The partial mobilization will begin this Wednesday.
“Only those citizens who are in the reserve, and especially those who have served in the armed forces, have certain military specialties and relevant experience, would be drafted. Those who are called up for military service will definitely undergo additional military preparation before being sent to their unit,” Putin said. According to Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu, 300,000 reservists are to be mobilized.
In the past few weeks, major supply problems in the Russian military have become known. According to numerous media reports, prisoners are recruited in prison camps to fight as mercenaries in Ukraine. In a state television interview also broadcast on Wednesday morning, Shojgu said that a front more than 1,000 kilometers long had to be defended. In addition, for the first time since the end of March, Shojgu gave the number of casualties for the Russian military: 5,937 soldiers were killed in Ukraine. Western and Ukrainian sources estimate the number of Russians killed in Ukraine since late February to be far higher.
Putin said the partial mobilization was “necessary to protect our homeland, its sovereignty and territorial integrity, to ensure the security of our people and the people in the liberated areas,” as Russia calls the occupied areas of Ukraine. He also said that “in Washington, London, Brussels, they are directly urging Kyiv to send troops to our territory,” and invoked a threat to Russia to be “dismembered and enslaved.” According to Lev Gudkov, a pollster at the Levada Center, Putin has refrained from mobilizing because the decision was unpopular in Russia.
In his speech, Putin threatened to use “every means at our disposal” to protect his “territorial integrity” and also mentioned nuclear weapons. “This is not a bluff.” Putin made a similar statement in his speech at the beginning of the attack on February 24. However, the Russian military had not responded with nuclear strikes to (partly suspected) Ukrainian attacks on targets in western Russia and Crimea, which was annexed in 2014. On Wednesday, Putin accused the West of attempts to “nuclear blackmail” Russia.
In addition, Putin announced the annexation of further Ukrainian territories, which has been in preparation since Tuesday, as a result of “referendums” in four partially occupied areas. “We support the decision made by the majority of citizens in the Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics, in the Kherson and Zaporizhia Oblasts,” he said.
The internationally sharply criticized “referendums” are to be held from this Friday until next Tuesday. They are seen as a reaction to the current Ukrainian counter-offensive in the east of the country to dissuade Ukraine and its Western backers from attacking areas that Russia would treat as its territory after an annexation.
