KYIV, Ukraine –
Russia ramped up its combat force on Tuesday with an annual fall draft of 120,000, and doubled the number of civilians it was trying to evacuate in anticipation of a major Ukrainian push to recapture. the important port city of Kherson in the south.
Russian military officials have assured that conscripts called up within the next two months will not be sent to fight in Ukraine, including in the Kherson region, three other regions of Ukraine that Russia recently annexed. illegal or Crimea, of which the Kremlin was part of Russia in 2014.
However, the US-based Institute for the Study of War said that the Russian Defense Ministry is “trying to mislead the Russian people into believing that fall conscripts will not be sent to fight in Ukraine, potentially preventing dodging the draft.”
The institute said that Russia’s illegal annexation of occupied Ukrainian areas “means that all fighting is taking place in areas that the Kremlin claims as Russian territory”, the institute said. know, so “conscripts will almost certainly be deployed to Ukraine once their training is complete around March or April 2023, and may be deployed earlier to meet the change on the battlefield.”
This year’s fall draft was scheduled to begin in October, but was delayed because of the unusual mobilization of 300,000 troops in reserve that President Vladimir Putin ordered on September 21. Russian officials announced the partial mobilization was completed on Monday, with critics warning that the mobilization could resume after the enlistment offices are freed from handling conscripts.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday that 87,000 servicemen called in the partial mobilization have been deployed to Ukraine to fight. Shoigu said that training them are 3,000 military trainers with combat experience in Ukraine.
Activists and Russian media and AP reports say many of the reservists are inexperienced and have been told to procure basic supplies such as medical kits themselves. and coats, and received no training before they were sent to battle. Some were killed within days of being called up. Following Putin’s orders, tens of thousands of men fled Russia to avoid serving in the military.
Several new troops are said to have been sent to Kherson, on the 1,100-kilometer (684-mile) front line. Russian-installed authorities in Kherson, fearing a major Ukrainian counterattack, on Tuesday reported the displacement of 70,000 residents and the expansion of the evacuation zone they announced last month to those people living within 15 km (9 mi) of the Dnieper River.
The Kremlin-appointed regional governor, Vladimir Saldo, said the evacuation of an additional 70,000 residents would be completed this week and stated that it was ordered “due to the possibility of the Ukrainian regime’s use of means the law of war is forbidden.” He repeated the statement that “Kyiv is preparing a massive missile attack on the Kakhovka hydroelectric station,” which he said would flood Kherson.
Ukraine’s General Staff on Tuesday described the new evacuations as “forced relocation”, saying that those residing along the banks of the Dnieper River “were forced out of their homes.”
Elsewhere, concerns about radiation are formed in two developments.
Experts from the United Nations nuclear watchdog inspected two sites in Ukraine on Tuesday that Russia identified as linked to baseless claims that Ukrainian authorities planned to plant “bombs” dirty” radioactive in their invaded country. The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, said tests for evidence of the so-called dirty bombs would be completed soon.
The Russians, without providing evidence, allege that the Ukrainians planned to build the bomb with the same purpose as the Russian one.
Russia’s UN ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, stated in a letter to Security Council members last week that Ukraine’s nuclear research facility and mining company “received direct orders” from (President Volodymyr) of the Zelenskyy regime to develop such a dirty bomb.”
Western nations have called Moscow’s repeated claims “totally untrue.” Ukrainian authorities dismissed this as an attempt to distract attention from alleged Russian plans to detonate a dirty bomb as a way to justify a further escalation of actions. hostile action.
The second radiation concern involves fighting near Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. The IAEA has placed monitors at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, where radioactive leaks can have catastrophic consequences.
The office of the President of Ukraine said on Tuesday that cities and towns around the plant had come under greater shelling from Monday to Tuesday. More than a dozen apartment buildings, a kindergarten and various businesses were damaged, the office said in Nikopol, a city across the wide Dnieper road across from the factory across from the factory.
Elsewhere on the front lines, Russian airstrikes targeting eight regions of southeastern Ukraine killed at least four civilians and wounded four others in 24 hours, Zelenskyy’s office said.
Russian artillery shells hit 14 towns and villages in eastern Donetsk on Monday and Tuesday, destroying sections of railway tracks, damaging power lines and destroying mobile communications in some areas .
The governor of the region, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said the shelling had killed three civilians. Donetsk is one of four regions that Moscow illegally annexed last month, and continues to see fierce clashes as Russian forces launch a massive assault on the cities of Bakhmut and Avdiivka. .
Another woman was killed after Russian missiles hit apartment buildings and a school in the southern city of Mykolayiv, its mayor said on Tuesday.
Ukraine still grapples with Tuesday with the aftermath of Monday’s massive Russian attacks, which disrupted electricity and water supplies. Ukraine’s state energy company, Ukrenergo, said seven regions would lose power to protect the system.
Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said authorities had restored electricity and running water in residential buildings in the capital, but power outages would continue. Kyiv region governor Oleksiy Kuleba said on Tuesday that 20,000 apartments remained without electricity.
In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, metro service was suspended again on Tuesday, according to the metro’s Telegram page. No reason was given.
Grain ships, in particular, continued to leave Ukraine on Tuesday despite Russia’s suspension of participation in a United Nations-brokered deal to provide essential food supplies to countries facing the crisis. hungry. The United Nations said three ships carrying 84,490 tonnes of corn, wheat and sunflower meal passed through a humanitarian maritime corridor.
