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KYIV: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday announced a partial mobilization in Russia as the war in Ukraine reaches nearly seven months and Moscow loses ground on the battlefield.<\/p>\n
Putin\u2019s address to the nation comes a day after Russian-controlled regions in eastern and southern Ukraine announced plans to hold votes on becoming integral parts of Russia. The Kremlin-backed efforts to swallow up four regions could set the stage for Moscow to escalate the war following Ukrainian successes.<\/p>\n
Putin said he has signed a decree on the partial mobilization, which is due to start on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are talking about partial mobilization, that is, only citizens who are currently in the reserve will be subject to conscription, and above all, those who served in the armed forces have a certain military specialty and relevant experience,\u201d Putin said.<\/p>\n
The referendums, which have been expected to take place since the first months of the war, will start Friday in the Luhansk, Kherson and partly Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions.<\/p>\n
Putin said the decision to partially mobilize was \u201cfully adequate to the threats we face, namely to protect our homeland, its sovereignty and territorial integrity, to ensure the security of our people and people in the liberated territories.\u201d<\/p>\n
He ordered Russia\u2019s first military mobilization since World War Two, warning the West that if it continued what he called its \u201cnuclear blackmail\u201d that Moscow would respond with the might of all its vast arsenal.<\/p>\n
Russia\u2019s mobilization was a predictable step that will prove extremely unpopular and underscores that the war is not going according to Moscow\u2019s plan, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said.<\/p>\n
Podolyak said that Russian President Vladimir Putin was trying to shift the blame for starting an \u201cunprovoked war\u201d and Russia\u2019s worsening economic situation onto the West.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbsolutely predictable appeal, which looks more like an attempt to justify their own failure,\u201d Podolyak wrote, giving the first reaction by Ukraine\u2019s presidential office.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe war is clearly not going according to Russia\u2019s scenario and therefore required Putin to make extremely unpopular decisions to mobilize and severely restrict the rights of people.\u201d<\/p>\n
British foreign office minister Gillian Keegan told Sky News that Putin\u2019s speech was a worrying escalation and the threats he made must be taken seriously.<\/p>\n
\u201cClearly it\u2019s something that we should take very seriously because, you know, we\u2019re not in control \u2014 I\u2019m not sure he\u2019s in control either, really. This is obviously an escalation,\u201d Keegan said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is chilling … It\u2019s a serious threat, but one that has been made before,\u201d she told the BBC in a separate interview.<\/p>\n
Putin restated his objective was to \u201cliberate\u201d eastern Ukraine\u2019s Donbas industrial heartland and that most people in the region did not want to return to what he called the \u201cyoke\u201d of Ukraine.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe overall address clearly was more of Putin\u2019s lies, it was a rewriting of history,\u201d Keegan said.<\/p>\n
Earlier Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday dismissed Russian plans to stage referendums in occupied regions in eastern and southern Ukraine as a \u201cnoise\u201d and thanked Ukraine\u2019s allies for condemning the votes scheduled to start Friday.<\/p>\n
Four Russian-controlled regions announced plans Tuesday to start voting this week to become integral parts of Russia, which could set the stage for Moscow to escalate the war following Ukrainian successes on the battlefield.<\/p>\n
Former President Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of Russia\u2019s Security Council chaired by Putin, said referendums that fold regions into Russia itself would make redrawn frontiers \u201cirreversible\u201d and enable Moscow to use \u201cany means\u201d to defend them.<\/p>\n
In his nightly address Zelensky said there were lots of questions surrounding the announcements but stressed that they would not change Ukraine\u2019s commitment to retake areas occupied by Russian forces.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe situation on the front line clearly indicates that the initiative belongs to Ukraine,\u201d he said. \u201cOur positions do not change because of the noise or any announcements somewhere. And we enjoy the full support of our partners in this.\u201d<\/p>\n
The upcoming votes, in the Luhansk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions are all but certain to go Moscow\u2019s way. But they were quickly dismissed as illegitimate by Western leaders who are backing Kyiv with military and other support that has helped its forces seize momentum on battlefields in the east and south.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thank all friends and partners of Ukraine for today\u2019s mass principled firm condemnation of Russia\u2019s attempts to stage new sham referenda,\u201d Zelensky said.<\/p>\n
In another signal that Russia is digging in for a protracted and possibly ramped-up conflict, the Kremlin-controlled lower of house of parliament voted Tuesday to toughen laws against desertion, surrender and looting by Russian troops. Lawmakers also voted to introduce possible 10-year prison terms for soldiers refusing to fight.<\/p>\n
If approved, as expected, by the upper house and then signed by Putin, the legislation would strengthen commanders\u2019 hands against failing morale reported among soldiers.<\/p>\n
In the Russian-occupied city of Enerhodar, shelling continued around Europe\u2019s largest nuclear power plant. Ukrainian energy operator Energoatom said Russian shelling again damaged infrastructure at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and briefly forced workers to start two diesel generators for emergency power to the cooling pumps for one of the reactors.<\/p>\n
Such pumps are essential for avoiding a meltdown at a nuclear facility even though all six of the plant\u2019s reactors have been shut down. Energoatom said the generators were later switched off as main power weas restored.<\/p>\n
The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant has been a focus for concern for months because of fears that shelling could lead to a radiation leak. Russia and Ukraine blame each other for the shelling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KYIV: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday announced a partial mobilization in Russia as the war in Ukraine reaches nearly seven months and Moscow loses ground on the battlefield. Putin\u2019s address to the nation comes a day after Russian-controlled regions in eastern and southern Ukraine announced plans to hold votes on becoming integral parts of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":182802,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10221280388112155_325455220908133":"","twitter_917774835383787521_917774835383787521":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182801"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182801"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":182803,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182801\/revisions\/182803"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}