US military experts: Putin could sell Ukraine war as "anti-terrorist operation".
Created: 09/29/2022, 05:01
By: Florian Naumann, Bettina Menzel, Franziska Schwarz, Fabian Müller
Mass exodus from Russia: Because of Putin's partial mobilization, many men want to go abroad.
News ticker on military events in the Ukraine war.
Ukraine offensive:
Kiev reports further territorial gains
Russian
army in the
Ukraine war
: Moscow apparently sends new soldiers to the front unprepared
Anger in
Russia
?
Dagestan
in focus: Videos show Putin's police in trouble
This is a
news ticker on military developments
in the Ukraine war.
Update from September 28, 10:29 a.m
.: According to the findings of the ISW, Russia could also send untrained soldiers to the front.
Further developments in our new news ticker on military events in the Ukraine war.
Update from September 28, 6:08 a.m.:
Russia could try to justify the invasion of Ukraine as an "anti-terrorist operation".
This was the result of an analysis by the US war researchers at the
Institute for the Study of War
.
According to the ISW report, Sergei Aksyonov, the prime minister of Russia's annexed Crimea, said on Monday that Russian officials could temporarily shut down the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant during the "anti-terrorist operation" in the newly annexed territories.
Aksyonov referred to a Russian federal law.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian newspaper
Kyiv Independent reported
on Wednesday, citing military information, that the Ukrainian military had achieved successes in the south.
Ukrainian troops killed 58 Russian soldiers on Tuesday and destroyed a tank and seven military vehicles.
In addition, Ukrainian forces apparently shot down a drone in Kherson Oblast and a Russian Su-35 fighter jet in the Mykolaiv region.
The information could not be independently verified.
Ukrainian military appears to be making further gains in the region east of the Oskil River in Kharkiv
Update September 27, 8:49 p.m.:
The Ukrainian military has announced that it has achieved further successes.
Several videos show that Ukrainian forces have made further advances east of the Oskil River in the Kharkiv region - which formed the border of their recent successful offensive.
One of the short video clips released on Tuesday shows a Ukrainian soldier raising the national flag in Kupyansk Vuzlovyi, a suburb south of the city of Kupyansk.
Other clips show Ukrainian troops entering villages further south, near the border between Kharkiv and Donetsk regions.
These villages are Koroviy Yar and Ridkodub.
Update from September 27, 8:01 p.m .:
Latvia has imposed a state of emergency in the border region with Russia in view of the partial Russian mobilization in the war against Ukraine.
The arrangement allows access to additional resources to protect the border in case more people from the Russian side try to enter Latvia.
This would also allow controls to be organized more quickly.
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The special regulation applies from September 28 for three months in several districts in the east of the Baltic EU and NATO country - including border checkpoints such as airports and train stations.
The government in Riga also decided on Tuesday to close the Pededze border crossing in order to further reduce the influx of Russian citizens.
In addition, the border guards were instructed to monitor the border more closely, as the State Chancellery announced.
War in Ukraine: Latvia has so far let almost 2,500 Russians into the country
According to the Interior Ministry, the situation on the Latvian-Russian border is stable, calm and under control.
However, with the partial mobilization announced by Russia, the number of Russian citizens wanting to leave their country has increased significantly.
Therefore, there is a risk that the number of illegal migrants could also increase rapidly, it said.
In response to Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, Latvia, along with Estonia, Lithuania and Poland, recently stopped entry for many people from the neighboring country - even if they had valid Schengen visas.
According to the Interior Ministry in Riga, a total of 57 Russians have been denied entry since the regulation came into force on September 19.
Since then, 2,475 Russians have legally crossed the land border into Latvia, and 2,332 have left for Russia.
Update from September 27, 5:14 p.m.:
Russia has announced that the residents of the four Ukrainian regions in which sham referendums are taking place allegedly voted in majority for accession.
According to Ukraine, it does not want to be influenced by this.
"These measures, these decisions by Putin will not affect Ukraine's politics, diplomacy and actions on the battlefield," Kiev Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said at a press conference.
Partial mobilization: Hundreds of thousands of Russians flee to Kazakhstan and Georgia - Kremlin takes position
Update from September 27, 3:44 p.m .:
Tens of thousands of Russian men have fled the country in view of their impending deployment on the Ukrainian front.
According to the local migration authority, almost 100,000 Russian citizens traveled to Kazakhstan alone within a week.
On Tuesday, September 27, around 5,000 vehicles were jammed at the border with Georgia.
Thousands of vehicles are backed up on the Russian-Georgian border.
Many Russians want to avoid partial mobilization in the Ukraine war.
© Yelena Afonina/Imago
The Russian Ministry of Defense has now stated that it does not want to put any pressure on these countries to force Russian war refugees to return home.
There are no plans to appeal to the authorities of these states.
Kazakh Interior Minister Marat Akhmechanov has already declared that his country will not extradite Russian conscientious objectors unless they are wanted internationally.
Ukraine offensive: Kyiv reports further territorial gains
Update from September 27, 11:25 a.m .:
While Russia is holding mock referendums in four areas of Ukraine, the Ukrainian troops are apparently moving further east.
The forces were apparently able to make further territorial gains east of the Oskil River.
The Pisky-Radkivski settlement is again under Ukrainian control, the administration of the municipality of Borova said on Tuesday night to the Telegram news service.
In addition, photos of destroyed Russian technology were shown.
The Ukrainian general staff had previously written about Russian shelling against Kupyansk-Vuslovyj about 40 kilometers to the north, indirectly confirming reports that the city had been recaptured.
Kupyansk-Vuzlovyj is an important railway junction on the left bank of the Oskil.
After being expelled from most of the Kharkiv region in early September, Russian troops retreated behind the line of the Oskil and Siverskyi Donets rivers.
However, they could not hold this line.
Ukrainian units are also said to have had successes in the Donetsk region bordering to the south and have approached the Luhansk region to within a few kilometers.
Ukraine War: Seven dead in airstrike in Kharkiv region
Update from September 26, 5:56 p.m .:
In the past 24 hours there have apparently been Russian attacks on the eastern Ukrainian regions of Kharkiv and Donetsk, as reported by the respective governors of the regions.
Seven people were killed in a Russian airstrike in Pervomaiskyi in the Kharkiv region on Monday.
According to the Kharkiv Oblast state emergency service, a 15-year-old child was also among the victims.
In Donetsk Oblast (excluding Mariupol and Volnovakha), Russian forces apparently killed three civilians and wounded 11, oblast governor Pavlo Kyrylenko reported.
The information could not be independently verified.
More graves may have been discovered in eastern Ukraine
After discovering hundreds of graves and several "torture rooms" in the retaken Kharkiv region of eastern Ukraine, Ukrainian forces may have uncovered more graves.
Authorities and soldiers spoke on Monday of up to a hundred bodies in the town of Kosatscha Lopan, about 40 kilometers north of Kharkiv, near the Russian border, without giving any further details.
Soldiers guarding the site told AFP they expect to find the bodies of Russian and Ukrainian troops and local civilians.
Ukrainian general staff reports a total of 57,200 Russian soldiers killed since the beginning of the war
However, the daily report of the Ukrainian general staff said that since the war began on February 24, 57,200 Russian soldiers have been killed, 500 more than the day before.
In addition, Ukrainian troops destroyed 260 Russian aircraft (+1), 2290 (+15) tanks, 224 (+4) helicopters and 4857 (25) armored personnel carriers.
First newly recruited soldiers apparently arrived in military bases
Update from September 26, 1:01 p.m
.: The first soldiers that Putin had newly recruited through his partial mobilization have arrived at the military bases.
"Several tens of thousands" of convocation letters had been sent.
The British secret service reported this on Twitter, and predicted that Moscow would have “administrative and logistical problems” in having the recruits trained.
In the Russian army, in contrast to many western armies, it is customary to undergo initial training within operational units rather than in special training institutions.
A certain number of instructors are normally allocated within each brigade to train new recruits.
However, many of these so-called third battalions are currently deployed to Ukraine.
The lack of training of the Russian soldiers now makes high losses in the attack on Ukraine likely.
Putin needs supplies: Russian soldiers are supposed to go into the Ukraine war with rusty weapons (symbolic photo).
© Sergei Bobylev/Imago
Mercenaries in the Ukraine war: "Putin's cook" claims to be the founder of the Wagner Group
Update from September 26, 10:44 a.m
.: Yevgeny Prigozhin is said to have close ties to Putin.
The Russian businessman has now announced his founding of the Wagner mercenary group - and has confirmed their operations in countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
He founded the group in May 2014 to send fighters to the Ukrainian Donbass, Prigozhin said in a statement from his company.
From this point on, "a group of patriots" was born, which "later received the name battalion tactical group Wagner".
Prigozhin further explained: "And now a confession (...) these guys, heroes, defended the Syrian people, other peoples in Arab countries, the disadvantaged in Africa and Latin America, they have become a pillar of our fatherland."
For years, the paramilitary Wagner group has been suspected of working in secret for the Kremlin at various conflict sites.
Moscow has always denied this and denied any connection with paramilitary groups.
Prigozhin himself was for a time one of the suppliers of the Kremlin's kitchens, earning him the nickname "Putin's Chef".
Also known as "Putin's Chef": Yevgeny Prigozhin (archive image from 2016) © ITAR-TASS/Imago
Russian army in the Ukraine war: Moscow apparently sends new soldiers to the front unprepared
Update from September 26, 7:01 a.m .:
The Russian army should send new soldiers who are recruited during partial mobilization directly to the front without training.
This was reported by the Ukrainian General Staff on Sunday (September 25) on its Facebook page.
The aim is to replace the losses in your own units as quickly as possible.
This has a significant impact on the morale and psychological state of the soldiers, the general staff continues.
In addition, the quality of the Russian combat units is said to suffer.
Russian recruits board a bus near a military recruitment center in the Russian city of Krasnodar.
(Photo from September 25, 2022) © dpa/ap/picture alliance
Forced recruitment: men from occupied Melitopol could be misused as “cannon fodder”.
Update from September 26, 7:01 a.m .:
The mayor of the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol in southeastern Ukraine, Ivan Fedorov, fears that Ukrainians in these regions will also be recruited for Russian military service.
"They will force the men to fight in their armed forces," Fedorov told Funke Mediengruppe newspapers (Monday editions).
Men between the ages of 18 and 63 are not allowed to leave his city of Melitopol, Fedorov said.
This is a big problem.
The men were advised to leave Melitopol for Crimea and travel from there to Georgia or the European Union.
But now the city and the villages in the region are sealed off.
Russia does not allow travel between towns and villages.
“They will draft our men and use them as cannon fodder.
They will mobilize all men, no matter what age," the mayor said.
He emphasized that similar actions by the Russian occupying forces could already be observed in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
The men there had "no chance to say no," he said.
Ukraine-News: Zelenskyy reacts to protests in the Russian republic of Dagestan
Update from September 25, 10:35 p.m .:
Volodymyr Zelenskyj has responded to reports of protests against Russia’s partial mobilization in Dagestan: “We see that people, especially in Dagestan, have started fighting for their lives,” said Zelenskyj in his daily video address .
He was referring to violent protests that had broken out hours earlier in the Muslim-dominated Russian republic of Dagestan in the Caucasus.
In a village from which 110 men were to be conscripted for the war against Ukraine, police officers reportedly even fired warning shots at demonstrators on Sunday.
"I emphasize once again: there is no way out," said Zelenskyj.
"Escape.
Or go into Ukrainian captivity at the first opportunity.”
Anger in Russia?
Dagestan in focus – videos show Putin's police in trouble
Update from September 25, 7.40 p.m .: Alleged
clashes between the police and opponents of the Russian partial mobilization in Dagestan are of great interest to the Ukrainian media.
The two portals
Nexta
and
Kyiv Independent
shared several videos in the evening that are supposed to show the difficulties of the forces loyal to Putin.
For example, the arrest of a protester was prevented.
Demonstrators also violently attacked police officers, and a group of women chanted "No to war!"
There was no official confirmation for these representations.
Nexta wrote that there were protests not only in small villages allegedly massively affected by the mobilization (see previous update), but also in the capital of Dagestan,
Makhachkala
.
There, the Russian National Guard surrounded demonstrators.
According to reports from the two Ukrainian media, there was also a detonation in the Russian-held city of Melitopol in southern Ukraine on Sunday.
According to initial findings, a car exploded.
Nothing was initially known about the occupants.
These reports could not be verified.
In August, a deadly attack on the car of Kremlin propagandist Darya Dugina made international headlines.
Anger at Putin's partial mobilization in southern Russia?
Video is said to show police warning shots
Update from September 25, 5:52 p.m .:
In the Russian republic of Dagestan, the police allegedly fired warning shots against protests against the Russian partial mobilization.
This is what civil rights activists report on Sunday.
Videos show police officers pointing guns in the air, then shots are heard.
Wrangling between residents and officials can also be seen.
According to Dagestani media, the protest was a reaction to 110 men from the village being forced into the war against Ukraine.
In the village of Endirej, residents had blocked a road to prevent the partial mobilization ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin, as the independent organization OVD-Info announced on Sunday.
Muslim Dagestan is one of the regions of Russia from which, according to observers, a particularly large number of men are conscripted.
Activists complain that members of ethnic minorities are particularly hard hit by the mobilization and therefore sometimes even speak of "ethnic cleansing".
This photo shows people in Makhachkala at a military recruitment center last Thursday (September 22).
© IMAGO/Stringer
Putin's Navy and attacks in the Baltic Sea: German Vice Admiral warns - "Embargo is not yet effective"
Update from September 25, 2:42 p.m
.: According to the assessment of the German naval inspector Jan Christian Kaack, the Russian Navy is being upgraded despite the western embargo and the Ukraine war.
"I assume that the Russian Navy will emerge from the Ukraine war essentially strengthened," the vice admiral told the
world
.
“We are currently recognizing the unchecked construction of modern units that are highly effectively equipped.
The Western embargo doesn't seem to be taking effect yet."
The units would be equipped with supersonic weapons or Iskander ballistic missiles.
Putin's announcement that new hypersonic sea missiles called "Zirkon" would soon be put into service on a frigate was not propaganda: "I take it seriously.
Very seriously."
At the same time, Kaack warned of Russian attacks under water.
“On the bottom of the Baltic Sea, but also in the Atlantic, there is some critical infrastructure such as pipelines or undersea cables for IT.
They can quickly switch off the light in countries like Estonia, and there are threats to global communication structures that you have to pay particular attention to.” According to Kaack, Russian underwater or surface units have recently been in the area of these cables for a long time.
Ukraine-News: Sham referendums continue despite shelling
Update from September 25, 1:26 p.m
.: The mock referendums in Ukraine continue despite the shelling.
According to the Russian occupation authorities, two people died in a hotel in the Kherson region on Sunday in a Ukrainian rocket attack.
In the city of Enerhodar in the Zaporizhia region, a polling station had to be relocated to another location due to massive shelling from the Ukrainian side, the Russian state news agency Tass reported.
This information could not be independently verified.
The votes, which have been criticized internationally as a breach of international law, are also scheduled for Tuesday in the Donetsk region.
Secret service: Partial mobilization is also putting pressure on Putin's national guard
Update from September 25, 10:53 a.m
.: According to British assessments, the Russian National Guard (Rosgwardija) is increasingly under pressure.
"There is a realistic possibility that the mobilization will be used to reinforce the Rosgwardiya units with additional forces," said the Ministry of Defense in London, citing intelligence findings.
There have already been calls in Moscow to extend the partial mobilization to the troops, the authority emphasized. "Rosgwardiya units have played an important role both in the fight and in securing the rear in Ukraine and are currently facilitating accession referendums in the occupied territories". , it was said in London.
The troops, which belong to the Ministry of the Interior, are actually intended for use in Russia and should help to secure Putin's "regime".
"She was particularly ill-prepared for the intense fighting in Ukraine," the ministry said.
"Given the need to quell the growing dissent in Russia, as well as operational tasks in Ukraine, Rosgwardiya is most likely under particular pressure."
Partial mobilization by Putin: insiders report chaos
First report from September 25
: Kiev/Washington - who should now go to the Ukraine war for Russia?
A missing point in the decree created confusion on the issue.
According to Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, Moscow wants to conscript a total of 300,000 men - that could contradict Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin's plan, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) in its latest update from September 25.
Putin's partial mobilization: Insider reports resistance in the Defense Ministry
Russian Defense Ministry officials are said to have reprimanded the military for sending out “excessive” drafts without paying attention to exceptions such as age or restrictions.
The ISW reports, citing an unnamed insider.
According to the ISW report, the federal districts are responsible for conducting conscription, while the Ministry of Defense sets the quotas and deadlines.
But here there is now “confusion, disorganization and violations of the specifications.”
"This points to a possible rift between Shoigu and Putin," is the assessment of the ISW's military experts.
The ISW is a think tank based in Washington.
Protests in Russia: Selenskyj calls on Moscow to give up
After new protests against Russian partial mobilization, Volodymyr Zelenskyj has meanwhile called on Moscow's fighters to surrender.
It is better to refuse to be called up for service than to die as a war criminal on foreign soil, the Ukrainian president said in a video message - in Russian.
At the same time he offered that Russian soldiers could voluntarily go into captivity.
There they would be treated in a civilized manner.
The partial mobilization for the Russian invasion of Ukraine has triggered panic among many Russians, and many are trying to leave the country.
More than 2,000 people have been arrested during protests in dozens of cities in Russia since Wednesday (September 21).
(frs with material from AFP and dpa)
