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"Militarily a disaster for Russia": Expert calculates with Putin's partial mobilization

2022-09-25T03:04:42.286Z


"Militarily a disaster for Russia": Expert calculates with Putin's partial mobilization Created: 09/25/2022, 04:57 By: Florian Naumann, Bettina Menzel, Franziska Schwarz, Fabian Müller Wearing a uniform, Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, observes military exercises taking place as part of the largest military maneuvers of the year "Centr-2019". (Archive image) © Alexei Nikolsky/dpa Putin or


"Militarily a disaster for Russia": Expert calculates with Putin's partial mobilization

Created: 09/25/2022, 04:57

By: Florian Naumann, Bettina Menzel, Franziska Schwarz, Fabian Müller

Wearing a uniform, Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, observes military exercises taking place as part of the largest military maneuvers of the year "Centr-2019".

(Archive image) © Alexei Nikolsky/dpa

Putin ordered a partial mobilization, the reactions to which are negative.

There is talk of a "disaster".

The news ticker on the military situation in the Ukraine war.

  • Reaction to partial mobilization by Putin

    : “inhuman” and “militarily a disaster”

  • Protests

    against Putin's

    partial mobilization

    : more than 700 people arrested across Russia.



    Ukraine's

    counteroffensive

    : According to their own statements, the armed forces are advancing to the border of the Donetsk region.

  • This news ticker has ended.

    You can find the current

    news ticker on the military situation in the Ukraine war

    here.

Update from September 22, 6.45 a.m .:

The German Reservists Association has described the partial mobilization for the Ukraine war announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin as “inhuman”.

Sending such "ill-prepared" soldiers into a war would also be "militarily a disaster for Russia," said association president Patrick Sensburg to the editorial network Germany (Thursday editions).

Reservists also need to be well trained and prepared.

In his view, the partial mobilization would actually weaken the Russian troops rather than strengthen them," Sensburg continued.

In his opinion, this measure will also not provide Putin with a sufficient number of soldiers for the war effort.

Many contracts for Russian soldiers will expire in the next few weeks, and the large number of soldiers who have died will have to be replaced.

However, it would be weeks before reservists could deploy due to the partial mobilization.

Time is needed for the preparation, from the medical examination to dressing and assignment to combat units.

Steinmeier: Partial mobilization "not a good sign" - Putin's speech "cynical"

Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier also sees the partial Russian mobilization as a worrying sign of a further escalation of the war in Ukraine.

"All of this strongly suggests that last resort is being used to further escalate the situation - not a good sign for the further progress of this war," said Steinmeier on Wednesday during a state visit to Mexico.

According to Steinmeier, Russia's leadership is apparently prepared to accept more victims among its own young people.

"And anyone who has read President Putin's speech cannot help but find it cynical." He is building the West into a giant monster in which Nazis are said to be threatening Russia and its territorial integrity.

"All this to justify that a partial mobilization should now take place among young people in Russia." The development "must worry us," said Steinmeier.

Ukraine announces exchange of 215 prisoners of war

Meanwhile, Ukraine on Wednesday announced the largest prisoner swap with Russia since the war began in late February.

"We managed to free 215 people," said the head of Ukraine's presidential office, Andriy Yermak, on television.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his daily address that Russia received 55 prisoners in exchange, including Viktor Medvedchuk, a former Ukrainian MP and ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

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According to Zelenskyy, among those released were military commanders who were involved in the defense of the Azov steelworks in the southern Ukrainian port of Mariupol. They were brought to Turkey in a long-prepared operation.

Zelenskyy explained that those released would remain there "in complete safety" until the end of the war.

Ten prisoners of war from five countries had previously been brought to Saudi Arabia from Russia.

Five of those released are from the UK, two from the US and one each from Sweden, Croatia and Morocco.

Update from September 21, 10:37 p.m .:

The Ukrainian commander-in-chief Valeryj Saluschnyj is confident of victory despite the mobilization of up to 300,000 reservists announced by Russia.

The announcement from Moscow only proves the strength of Ukraine, he wrote on Facebook on Wednesday.

"Hundreds of thousands of men and women are protecting their homeland, their homes, their children and the future of Ukraine." Moscow's actions will not change that.

"We will destroy everyone who comes to our country with weapons - whether voluntarily or through mobilization," Zalushnyj threatened.

According to the General Staff in Kyiv, the Ukrainian army repelled five Russian attacks on Wednesday, including near Kupyansk in the Kharkiv region.

So far, the supplies for the Russian troops in the Donbass have run via the railway junction.

In their counter-offensive in early September, the Ukrainians largely took control of Kupyansk.

The General Staff reported Russian tank and artillery shelling on many sectors of the front.

Civilian infrastructure was shot at in more than 30 towns.

The military information was initially not independently verifiable.

Protests against Putin's partial mobilization: More than 700 people arrested across Russia

Update from September 21, 8:44 p.m .:

Hundreds of people were arrested in Russia during protests against the partial mobilization ordered by Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin.

The civil rights portal OVD-Info counted 735 arrests across Russia on Wednesday evening.

260 demonstrators were arrested in the capital Moscow and 267 in St. Petersburg. The largest rallies were also held in the country's two largest cities.

The people of Moscow chanted a "Russia without Putin".

BBC journalist Francis Scarr shared a video on social media platform Twitter showing a small gathering of people in Moscow loudly chanting "Put Putin in the trenches."

In Tomsk and Irkutsk in Siberia, in Yekaterinburg in the Urals and in other places, isolated people took to the streets.

They held up placards with the colors of the Ukrainian flag and slogans such as "No to mobilization!".

In view of the massive state repression in Russia, the protests are unlikely to be too large.

In Moscow, for example, the authorities warned against participation even before the start of a planned demonstration: the public prosecutor threatened people with up to 15 years in prison.

Since the start of the war against Ukraine almost seven months ago, the Russian government has been taking tough action against members of the opposition and opponents of the war, including stricter laws.

Ukrainian authorities report attacks by Russian troops on civilian infrastructure

Update from September 21, 5:37 p.m .:

Ukrainian authorities reported attacks on civilian infrastructure on Wednesday.

In the afternoon, Russian troops are said to have attacked the Synelnyk district.

"They aimed at an infrastructure facility and an agricultural enterprise," the governor of Dnipropetrovsk said on Wednesday.

The deputy head of the presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said that there had been two rocket attacks by Russia in the Kharkiv region.

These are said to have damaged a dam.

The information could not be independently verified, but it is basically in line with the assumption of the US military and British secret services, according to which Russia apparently wants to increasingly attack civilian targets.

Kremlin chief Putin plans partial mobilization of Russian troops

Update from September 21, 1:25 p.m

.: Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin plans to mobilize troops in the Ukraine war.

300,000 reservists are to support the military in Ukraine.

Details of the measure are now known: The mobilization affects Russians who have already served in the army, especially those with combat experience and military training.

University students and conscripts will be exempt from mobilization, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said.

Also excluded from the mobilization are seniors, Russians with health problems, single parents and fathers with many children, and members of the State Duma, i.e. politicians.

Conscripts are to be deployed on Russian territory, the Russian news agency Tass reported.

To what extent these plans will change after the planned annexation of several Ukrainian territories seems unclear.

Tass also writes that all mobilized soldiers "undergo additional training before being sent to the area of ​​military operations."

In the meantime, a number of people are said to be concerned about the new Putin plans with thoughts of fleeing.

Tass writes: "Citizens who have been entered in the military register since the beginning of the mobilization do not have the right to leave their place of residence without permission from the military commissariats."

According to the head of the Defense Committee in the Duma, Andrei Kartapolov, the restriction on freedom of travel primarily affects vacations abroad.

"You can continue to go to Krasnodar or Omsk on a business trip, but I wouldn't advise you to go to Turkish resorts - it's better to relax in the resorts of Crimea and Krasnodar region," the deputy said on Wednesday.

Flight bookings to Turkey, for example, were no longer possible on Wednesday on relevant portals on the Internet.

Update from September 21, 9:32 a.m .:

Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has estimated the losses of its own army in the Ukraine war at 5937 military personnel.

"Russia's losses amount to 5937," Shoigu said on Russian television on Wednesday.

It is the first time in months that Russia has officially released figures.

However, independent observers assume that Russia will suffer significantly higher losses.

Shoigu put the number of Ukrainian soldiers killed at more than 60,000.

In addition, almost 50,000 were injured, so that the "losses" would total more than 100,000, Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on state television on Wednesday.

As a result, Ukraine has lost more than half of its former armed forces, which are said to have initially consisted of more than 200,000 people, Shoigu claimed.

This could not be verified independently.

Ukraine itself had estimated the death toll in its own ranks at the end of August at almost 9,000 soldiers.

Update from September 21, 8:18 a.m

.: Almost seven months after the start of the war against Ukraine, Russia has ordered a partial mobilization of its own armed forces.

He made this decision based on a proposal from the Defense Ministry and signed the decree, Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin said in a televised speech.

Partial mobilization will begin this Wednesday.

According to their own statements, Ukrainian armed forces are advancing to the border of the Donetsk region

Update from September 20, 8:06 p.m .:

According to their own statements, the Ukrainian armed forces raised the Ukrainian flag on the border of the Donetsk and Kharkiv regions.

This was written by the head of the military administration of the Donetsk region, Pavlo Kyrylenko, in a telegram on Tuesday.

"The Ukrainian flag was raised on the entrance sign at the border between Donetsk and Kharkiv regions," he wrote.

"Thanks to our armed forces, this section of the Kyiv-Kharkiv-Dovshansky highway is free of occupiers, but extremely dangerous as it is literally crammed with deadly military debris." Heavy fighting was still being fought in the area until recently, but now there is only abandoned equipment and minefields left, Kyrylenko continued.

Update from September 20, 2:07 p.m

.: From Friday (September 23), referendums on the annexation by Russia are to take place in the pro-Russian separatist areas of the Ukrainian Donbass region.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev previously said the move could strengthen Russia's military offensive in the country.

However, US military experts question the benefits for Putin.

More Ukraine annexations?

US military experts warn Putin of 'humiliation'

Update from September 20, 11:56 a.m

.: The new counter-offensive by the Ukrainians also worries parts of the Russian public – the plans to hold referenda in the pro-Russian occupied areas of Donetsk and Luhansk result, at least according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW ) but no sense.

The areas are not fully controlled by Russia.

At the same time, it is questionable whether the self-proclaimed incorporation of the regions into Russian territory would offer strategic advantages.

A comparison with the annexed Crimea already shows that Ukrainian attempts at reconquest do not necessarily lead to Russian retaliatory strikes against NATO, according to the US think tank's most recent situation report.

The ISW also said: A partial annexation of Donetsk and Luhansk would potentially put the Kremlin chief in the “humiliating situation” of not being able to hold these areas with his military.

"It is unclear whether Putin would agree to this, just because of the already questionable advantage of being able to threaten NATO or Kyiv with an escalation."

The ISW military experts currently consider this step to be "very unlikely".

Update from September 20, 9.45 a.m .:

The British secret service reports that Russian submarines have been withdrawn from Crimea – and blames the Kremlin’s concerns about hitting Ukraine for the step.

Russia has withdrawn its Kilo-class submarines from the annexed Ukrainian Black Sea Peninsula and relocated them to the southern Russian port city of Novorossiysk, the Defense Ministry in London said, citing intelligence information.

The "kilo class" includes conventionally powered submarines, primarily from the 1980s.

The reason is probably that Ukraine's ability to carry out long-distance attacks has increased: "In the past two months, the fleet headquarters and its main airfield have been attacked."

The ministry pointed out that with the annexation of Crimea in 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin also wanted to guarantee the security of the Black Sea Fleet.

"The security of the bases has now been directly undermined because of Russia's ongoing aggression against Ukraine," the agency noted.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military reported on Monday that the Russian Black Sea Fleet had increased its fleet operating off Crimea to ten ships in the fight against Ukraine.

Among them are three missile cruisers and three large landing ships.

Ukraine-News: Selenskyj demands speed in offensive – new details on the mass grave near Izyum

Overview from September 20, 7:00

a.m.: Kiev – Ukraine's counter-offensive seems to be progressing.

After consulting with his military, Volodymyr Zelenskyj now said that the Ukrainian forces had the situation in the liberated areas near Kharkiv in the east firmly under control.

He thanked individual army brigades, but also the SBU secret service, whose leadership he replaced in July.

In the meantime, the SBU is making sure "that the occupiers can't stay anywhere on Ukrainian soil."

At the same time, the Ukrainian President called for quick action: speed is important in stabilizing the liberated regions, in normalizing life there and in advancing the troops of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin.

Support from abroad must also keep up with this pace, he demanded.

The General Staff of Ukraine said that on September 19, Russian troops shelled civilian objects in 24 locations.

Mass grave near Izyum: According to Kyiv, most of the dead were apparently civilians

The day before, the Ukrainian side had reported that most of the dead in the mass grave near Izyum were apparently civilians.

Two children were among the 146 bodies so far, said Kharkov Governor Oleh Syniehubov.

According to previous reports, many of the bodies appear to show "signs of a violent death."

Forensic investigations are currently underway to determine the causes of death.



However, strikes against civilian targets may be part of Russia's new war tactics, as suspected by British intelligence and the US military.

The Kremlin has called Kiev's war crimes allegations a "lie".

The information could not initially be independently verified.

(dpa/AFP/frs)

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2022-09-25

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