Russia to mobilise up to 700,000 people soon, Ukraine warns
Russia is preparing for another wave of mobilisation in order to beef up manpower for its full-scale war against Ukraine, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said on Monday.
Last September, Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered a ‘partial mobilisation’ of up to 300,000 people as Ukraine waged successful counteroffensives in the east and south, recapturing the city of Kherson and most of the Kharkiv region.
According to the Ukrainian military, Moscow may soon mobilise 400,000 to 700,000 people from Russia and Ukraine’s temporarily occupied territories.
About 40,000 more from the Chechen Republic, an autonomous region led by Mr Putin’s yes-man, Ramzan Kadyrov, are likely to be used by the occupiers as ‘barrier units’ behind Russian troops, the General Staff added.
Conversely, in Moscow and St Petersburg, the numbers of planned mobilisations are again minimal, reflecting public discontent with the previous wave of mobilisation in Russia.
"Ordinary citizens, residents of Russian regions, will once again go to the front as 'cannon fodder', pushed to their deaths by Mr Kadyrov’s executioners," the General Staff said in a statement.
Russia has continued to recruit manpower to wage its full-scale war in Ukraine ever since the invasion last February, a possible sign of heavy losses suffered by the Russian troops as they seek to capture Ukrainian territory.
Ukrainian defence intelligence estimates that Russia mobilises about 20,000 people for the war against Ukraine every month, including men from the territory it has captured or occupied.