Eight months after its launch, the myth of the simple “special military operation” in Ukraine lived. Without however pronouncing the word of « guerre »Vladimir Putin took a major step on Wednesday, September 21, by decreeing the mobilization of citizens for the Ukrainian front, where Russian forces have been jostled for several weeks. “The oukaze is signed, the process begins today”the president said in a rare televised address to his people, in which he waved the nuclear threat again.
This mobilization is only ” partial “, insisted the Russian president, aware of the politically explosive nature of such a measure. This call is only for reservists, “those who have already served and have relevant experience”, he specified. A few minutes later, the Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu, gave a precise figure: 300,000 citizens, aged 65 for the oldest, will be called up.
This change of course had also been prepared upstream with the adoption by the Duma, Monday, September 19, of a law evoking for the first time a « mobilisation » and providing for prison terms (three years) for reservists refusing to respond to a summons from the army. After repeating for months that the“special operation” in Ukraine was taking place “according to plan”, Mr. Putin did not admit any military failure. He only insisted on the involvement of the West in the conflict: “On a front line of more than 1,000 kilometers, our army is not only confronting neo-Nazi formations, but the entire war machine of the collective West”underlined the Russian president, detailing the deployments of weapons and men.
The goal of the West would remain to ” destroy “ Russia, as Vladimir Putin has been insisting for several years. According to him, “London, Washington, Brussels are pushing kyiv to bring military operations to Russian territory”, and even before the beginning of the conflict had the ambition to attack Russia. As if to support these assertions, Mr. Choïgou then, for the first time since March, gave a toll of those killed within the armed forces: their number would amount to 5,937, a figure which remains however lower than the obituaries. and public announcements available in open source. The number of killed in the Ukrainian army would exceed 60,000.
Serious admission of failure
Immediately after these announcements, several governors announced that they were setting up structures responsible for carrying out the mobilization. The ukaze signed by Mr. Putin is in fact rather vague, and orders each region to fulfill the quotas set by the Ministry of Defence. Ultimately, the objective is to replenish the ranks of the infantry, the lack of personnel being one of the explanations for the rout suffered by the Russian army in the Kharkiv region at the beginning of September.
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