Russian President orders partial mobilisation of army reserves
By Alexander Bueso
Date: Wednesday 21 Sep 2022
(Sharecast News) - Vladimir Putin called for a partial mobilisation of the country's reservists, in a move decried by many in the West as an escalation.
In televised remarks overnight, the Russian President also accused the US and its allies of seeking to "destroy" Russia, adding that Moscow would "use all means available" to defend its territory.
"Our country also has various weapons of mass destruction and, in some categories, more modern ones than those possessed by Nato countries," he said, according to the BBC.
"This is no bluff."
He also argued that the move was an "urgent" and necessary step "to defend the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Russia".
The announcement was made a day after officials in the four Ukrainian regions controlled by Moscow said they would call snap referendums on whether to join the Russian Federation.
Most of important of all perhaps, it also followed recent quick advances by Ukrainian forces in the northeast of the country which had taken them back close to the border of one of the breakaway regions, Luhansk.
Later, Russian defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, said that as many as 300,000 troops would be mobilised in a gradual fashion.
Responding to the news, in a message posted to his account on social media platform Twitter, German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said: "If we want Putin's war to end, then we cannot be indifferent to how it ends.
"This is why we will not accept a peace dictated by Russia - and we will not accept any sham referendums either.
"This is why #Ukraine must be able to defend itself against Russia's invasion. #UNGA."
US ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget A. Brink, added that the "sham referenda and mobilization are signs of weakness, of Russian failure.
"The United States will never recognize Russia's claim to purportedly annexed Ukrainian territory, and we will continue to stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes."
A spokesman for China's foreign ministry, Wang Wenbin, called for dialogue amongst all parties and consultations to stop the fighting "and find a way to address the legitimate security concerns of all parties.
"We hope the international community can create the space and conditions for this to happen."
For his part, jailed Russian dissident, Alexey Navalny, said that Putin "is tormenting a neighboring country, killing people there, and now he is throwing a huge number of Russian citizens into the meat grinder of war.
"It was a crime, and now it has become a crime of a much larger scale."
In another post on Twitter, Greg Yudin, head of political philosophy at The Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences, estimated during the previous week that roughly a fifth of Russians actively supported the war.
About one quarter of the population meanwhile were "categorically" opposed to the conflict, he said.
Yudin described the remainder of Russians, as "laymen", describing them as "a passive majority that is completely depoliticized and doesn't want to have anything in common with politics & war."
Special promo:
Trading the Forex Market? Visit FXmania.com to get advanced infomation about currencies and the Foreign Exchange
Market.
Email this article to a friend
or share it with one of these popular networks:
You are here: news
10 Lower Thames St,
London EC3R 6EN