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Destroyed Russian tank is near Kharkiv (on September 3)
Photo: David Ryder / dpa
That says Kyiv
Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelenskyy
has called on the
Russian population
to
resist
partial mobilization
in the
country.
55,000 Russian soldiers have already died since the start of the Russian war of aggression on February 24, Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address.
'Want more of this?
No?
Then protest against it.
Fight it.
run away
Or surrender,” Zelenskyj continued.
Now it was "time to decide," said the President.
For men in Russia it is a question of "
die or live
, become an invalid or stay healthy".
For women, it's about "losing their husbands, sons, grandchildren forever - or protecting them from death, from war, from a person," Zelensky said, referring to Kremlin ruler
Vladimir Putin
.
According to information from Kiev , many of the prisoners
returned from Russia to Ukraine
in the largest
prisoner
exchange since the beginning of the war show signs of
torture
.
"Many of them were brutally tortured," Ukrainian intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov said at a press conference on Thursday, without giving details of the torture methods.
There are also prisoners whose physical condition "is more or less normal, apart from chronic malnutrition due to poor prison conditions," he said.
According to Ukraine's Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky, all exchanged Ukrainians need psychological treatment.
According to
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba ,
Russia
has no interest in
peace talks
.
"The Russian leadership is only looking for a military solution," Kuleba told the UN Security Council in New York on Thursday.
He accused Russian diplomats of an “extraordinary amount of lying”.
Moscow says so
Also before the UN Security Council,
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
accused Ukraine
of threatening
Russia's security .
In addition, he claimed in New York that the rights of Russian and Russian-speaking people in Ukraine were being trampled on.
Russia will never accept this.
"Everything I said today only confirms that the decision to carry out the special military operation was inevitable."
In the semi-annual conscription, Russia drafted 120,000 conscripts.
"Citizens called up for military service will
not be used
to take part in the
special
military operation
in
Ukraine
," said the head of the mobilization department in the General Staff, Vladimir Tsimlyansky, according to the Interfax news agency on Thursday.
According to him, the conscripts whose term of service is now ending will also be released and sent to their hometowns.
In Russia, regular military service lasts one year.
The 120,000 new recruits are fewer than last fall.
"But this number fully covers the needs of the state security organs - despite the implementation of the military special operation," said Tsimlyansky.
Officials in Moscow still cloak Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine as a "special military operation."
humanitarian situation
Greens
and
SPD
are calling for
Russian
conscientious objectors to
be admitted
quickly .
"Anyone who does not want to take part as a soldier in Putin's murderous war of aggression against Ukraine, which violates international law, and therefore flees Russia, must be granted asylum in Germany," said parliamentary secretary Irene Mihalic (Greens) of the "Rheinische Post".
SPD faction deputy Dirk Wiese told the newspaper that the stricter penalties that people would face if they were withdrawn from conscription "I already consider the current legal situation to be sufficient grounds for asylum." (You can find more about the fear of mobilization in Russia here. )
The state's
open persecution
of Russian
civil society
is coming to a head, according to a report for the
Organization
for Security and Co-operation in Europe
(OSCE).
The repression of the opposition, the media and independent organizations has reached a new high
in recent months after the start of the aggressive war in Ukraine
.
This is what it says in an analysis by the German lawyer Angelika Nußberger.
"The most important strategy of the Russian authorities is based on intimidation," summed up the former Vice President of the European Court of Human Rights, who researches at the University of Cologne.
In July, Nußberger was commissioned by 38 of the 57 OSCE countries to draft a report on human rights, the rule of law and democracy in Russia.
Moscow did not cooperate and did not allow her to travel to Russia.
Nußberger's investigation was based, among other things, on interviews with representatives of civil society and with former and active Russian officials, who were not named for their protection.
International Reactions
Foreign Minister
Annalena Baerbock
has called on the international community to
support
efforts
to
prosecute Russian crimes against international law
in Ukraine
.
'There must be no impunity.
This is our promise to the victims, especially the most vulnerable victims, women, girls, but also the elderly," said the Greens politician in New York.
Baerbock
's US colleague Antony Blinken
said the Russian President should not get away with his actions.
"The international order that we have gathered here to uphold is being
shredded before our eyes
," Blinken said at a ministerial-level meeting on the fringes of the UN general debate.
“We cannot and will not allow Putin to get away with this.”
It must be made clear "that no country can move the borders of another country by force," said Blinken.
"If we don't defend this principle, which the Kremlin so blatantly violates, then we'll send the message to aggressors everywhere that they can ignore it." Blinken also accused Putin of partial mobilization and the so-called referendums in occupied areas of Ukraine pouring "oil on the fire" for a union with Russia.
What is happening today
In the
four
Ukrainian
regions
largely
occupied
by
Russia
, several million residents have been called to
mock referendums
on
accession
to
Russia
.
The vote, set to run from September 23-27, was only announced this week.
Moscow wants to incorporate the areas with the help of the result.
Neither Ukraine nor the international community will recognize the vote under occupying Russia.
The
77th
_
General debate
of the UN General Assembly continues.
A total of more than 150 heads of state and government have announced their attendance for the diplomatic meeting in New York with numerous side events until September 26th.
The main topic remains the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine.
jok/Reuters/dpa