Get 40% Off
🤯 This Tech Portfolio is up 29% YTD! Join Now to Get April’s Top PicksGet The Picks – Just 99 USD

Kremlin Denies Report of Secret Plan to Mobilize 1 Mln Reservists for Ukraine War

Published 23/09/2022, 02:00 am
Updated 23/09/2022, 02:00 am
© Reuters

© Reuters

By Geoffrey Smith 

Investing.com -- The Kremlin pushed back against a report claiming that the mobilization measures announced on Wednesday are much more ambitious than President Vladimir Putin admitted.

The news site Novaya Gazeta quoted an unnamed official in the presidential administration as saying that the government had kept classified a clause in the decree ordering the 'partial mobilization', which indicated that it is looking to call up 1 million men to bolster its flagging campaign in Ukraine.

Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu had said on Thursday that the draft target was only 300,000, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stuck to that line when asked about Novaya Gazeta's report on Thursday, telling Interfax that the report is "a lie."

If true, the report would drastically raise the domestic political stakes for Putin, who has tried to shield the general population from the consequences of what he calls a "Special Military Operation" so far.

Putin's 'partial mobilization' announcement was met with a wave of protests across Russian cities on Wednesday, at which over 1,400 arrests were made, according to the non-government organization OVD-Info. The move also appeared to trigger a wave of efforts by fighting-age men to escape the draft any way they could, with prices for flights out of Russia skyrocketing and unverified social media footage purporting to show long lines of cars trying to cross Russia's borders with its neighbors.

However, Finland's government said on Thursday that there were no such scenes at its border crossing with Russia and that the social media clips were not current and had been taken out of context.

"The reaction of Russians to mobilization has turned out very differently from what the Kremlin expected," Leonid Nevzlin, a former business colleague of exiled oil baron Mikhail Khodorkovsky, said via Twitter.

Nevzlin, who fled Russia when Khodorkovsky was arrested and their shares in the Yukos oil company were confiscated in 2003, said there was "no happiness on the faces at the prospect of dying in the interests of Putin's mafia."

Elsewhere on Thursday, Russia agreed to a major exchange of prisoners of war with Ukraine, returning over 200 former defenders of the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol. Ukraine returned 55 captives to Russia, including former Presidential adviser Viktor Medvedchuk, who has been charged in Ukraine with treason. Putin is the godfather of Medvedchuk's youngest daughter.

The diplomatic pressure on Russia increased, meanwhile, as UN Secretary-General António Guterres thundered against the "catalog of cruelty" in Ukraine's war as he opened a UN Security Council meeting.

Without naming Russia explicitly, Guterres said reports from the UN's rights body show "a catalog of cruelty — summary executions, sexual violence, torture and other inhumane and degrading treatment against civilians and prisoners of war."

"Perpetrators must be held to account in fair and independent judicial proceedings," he added. "Victims and their families have a right to justice, remedy and reparation."

Latest comments

Risk Disclosure: Trading in financial instruments and/or cryptocurrencies involves high risks including the risk of losing some, or all, of your investment amount, and may not be suitable for all investors. Prices of cryptocurrencies are extremely volatile and may be affected by external factors such as financial, regulatory or political events. Trading on margin increases the financial risks.
Before deciding to trade in financial instrument or cryptocurrencies you should be fully informed of the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, carefully consider your investment objectives, level of experience, and risk appetite, and seek professional advice where needed.
Fusion Media would like to remind you that the data contained in this website is not necessarily real-time nor accurate. The data and prices on the website are not necessarily provided by any market or exchange, but may be provided by market makers, and so prices may not be accurate and may differ from the actual price at any given market, meaning prices are indicative and not appropriate for trading purposes. Fusion Media and any provider of the data contained in this website will not accept liability for any loss or damage as a result of your trading, or your reliance on the information contained within this website.
It is prohibited to use, store, reproduce, display, modify, transmit or distribute the data contained in this website without the explicit prior written permission of Fusion Media and/or the data provider. All intellectual property rights are reserved by the providers and/or the exchange providing the data contained in this website.
Fusion Media may be compensated by the advertisers that appear on the website, based on your interaction with the advertisements or advertisers.
© 2007-2024 - Fusion Media Limited. All Rights Reserved.