A call to “protest” against the partial mobilization ordered by President Vladimir Putin was addressed in a video message by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Russians. “Fifty-five thousand Russian soldiers have died in these six months of the war. Tens of thousands are wounded and maimed. Do you want more? No? Then protest survive, are they “run away or surrender”.
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KULEBA – Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to partially mobilize the armed forces’ reservists, says Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, is “an admission of defeat.” “Putin announced a mobilization, but what he really announced to the whole world was his defeat.” “You can recruit 300,000 or 500,000 people, but you will never win this war,” Kuleba said during his speech to the United Nations Security Council in New York.
The head of Ukrainian diplomacy then stressed that Russia was not interested in holding peace talks with Kyiv to end the war. “The Russian leadership is only looking for a military solution.”
Lavrov – Referendums on annexation to Russia, to be held in the Donbass, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, are a response to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s invitation to the Russians to leave Ukraine. “The apotheosis was an interview Mr. Zelenskyy gave on August 5 last year, in which he advised all those who consider themselves Russians to go to Russia for the sake of their children and grandchildren,” Lavrov said, adding, that recent decisions on referendums “are a response to his wish (von Zelensky, ed.)”.
THE PROTESTS – From the Russian Republic of Dagestan in the Caucasus region comes news of protests against the mobilization of reservists to go to Ukraine and fight. Two videos are shown on the Guardian website, one showing a motorcade blocking a highway in Babaiurt in protest, the other showing a heated exchange between a group of men and a recruitment officer. The woman explains that we must fight to defend the future, but a man replies: “We don’t even have a present, what future are you talking about?”.
Meanwhile, a Guardian reporter has heard from a resident of a village of 450 people in Buryatia. The woman said twenty received the mobilization order, including several in their fifties. Several commentators in Russia and abroad have predicted that the mobilization will mostly hit the country’s most remote and poorest areas. Buryatia is one of the Russian republics that has so far suffered the most casualties in the war in Ukraine.
THE BAN ON LEAVING THE REGION – The authorities of the Russian Republic of Tatarstan have banned all reservists from leaving the region. writes the Moscow Times. The order was issued after the decree announced yesterday by Russian President Vladimir Putin to mobilize reservists for the war in Ukraine.
The Tatarstan authorities have also obligated all employers to ensure that reserve workers among their employees report to the employment offices. Anyone who fails to do so will be fined. All reservist employees of Kazanorgsintez, one of Russia’s largest chemical companies, received the summons from the enlistment office this morning.
“I think Tatarstan will choose the easiest way and mobilize mainly employees of state companies, as well as villagers and small towns, where people have no rights, are dependent on the government and don’t know where to hide,” comments Tatar journalist Ruslan Aysin . .