Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday announced a “partial mobilization” of Russians of fighting age in Ukraine, warning the West that Moscow is ready to use “all means” to defend itself.
“This is not a bluff,” Putin stressed with a serious face, accusing Western countries of wanting to “destroy” Russia and of having resorted to “nuclear blackmail” against his country, implying that their forces would be willing to use the weapon nuclear.
Facing the lightning counter-offensives of the Ukrainian forces, which pushed back the Russian army, Putin opted for an escalation in the conflict, with a measure that opens the way to send more soldiers to Ukraine.
After the organization of annexation “referendums” in four regions of eastern and southern Ukraine from Friday was announced on Tuesday, the Russian president’s announcements mark a turning point in the conflict, which began on February 24 .
“We are only talking about a partial mobilization,” insisted the Russian president in a speech on television previously recorded and broadcast yesterday, explaining that the order concerns citizens “who have already served (…) and who have relevant experience” .
Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu specified that the order concerns 300,000 reservists, that is, barely “1.1% of mobilizable resources.”
The order is effective from this Wednesday, the Russian president said. The corresponding decree was published shortly after on the Kremlin portal.
At least 364 people were arrested yesterday throughout Russia in demonstrations against the partial mobilization for the offensive in Ukraine announced hours earlier by President Putin, an NGO said.
According to OVD-Info, an organization specialized in counting arrests, the mobilizations took place in at least 23 cities throughout the country.
Putin’s announcement immediately caused a stampede on airline websites to try to get out of Russia as soon as possible.
According to the statistical tool Google Trends, which allows knowing the frequency with which a word is typed in Google, searches in Russia with the terms “tickets” and “airplane” have more than doubled since the beginning of the television speech recorded by Vladimir Putin.
Zelensky’s speech
The president of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelenski, demanded yesterday, September 21, before the UN a “just punishment” for Russia for the aggression against his country, while asking to remove his right to veto in the Security Council.
“A crime has been committed against Ukraine and we ask for fair punishment,” said Zelensky, the only leader allowed to deliver his speech via video at the annual meeting.
In addition, he called for a fund to compensate for the damages that Ukrainians have suffered during the invasion and called for the establishment of a special court against Russia “for the crime of aggression against our state.”
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