The Kremlin recognizes that its “special military operation” against Ukraine is a war

The official terminology of Russian propaganda still maintains that the invasion of Ukraine is a “special military operation,” but the Kremlin has recognized, two years and one month later, that the offensive on the neighboring country “is a

de facto

war .”

“We are in a state of war.

Yes, this started as a special military operation, but as soon as that bloc was formed, as soon as the Western collective sided with Ukraine, a war began for us,” Dmitri Peskov, spokesman for the Russian leader, Vladimir, declared this Friday. Putin.

In the background is the increasingly real possibility that the Kremlin will initiate another forced recruitment among its population.

“Everyone must understand this idea for their internal mobilization,” Peskov added two years after the Kremlin itself made it a crime to say that Russia was immersed in a war.

According to Moscow, this statement discredited its armed forces because everything was going "according to plans" for a "surgical operation."

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of people, both soldiers and civilians, have died in the conflict.

This is not the first time that the Kremlin has spoken of the concept of a war from the point of view of a “confrontation” with the West, although until now it has not been so clear in describing the reality of the invasion of Ukraine.

In a speech before the Russian Parliament on February 29, Putin claimed not to have started “the Donbas war” of 2014—despite the proven entry of Russian paramilitaries into eastern Ukraine at its beginning—and referred to the current invasion. like “the Ukraine conflict” when he declared that the West and Russia “have forgotten what a war means.”

The Russian president's spokesman has also predicted that the war will continue whether the West wants it or not.

“We have four new federal subjects,” he stated, referring to the occupied areas of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, to which is added the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014. “The main thing for us is to protect the population from those regions and liberate their territory, which is currently occupied

de facto

by the Kiev regime,” Peskov declared about four provinces that Moscow considered sovereign Ukrainian territory until its annexation on paper in September 2022.

“Declarations of internal mobilization are the key,” said Russia expert Mark Galeotti on his social networks.

“The Kremlin demands that every Russian adopt a war mentality and understand that there is no middle ground between being a patriot or a traitor (according to Putin's definition),” says the analyst.

“I have heard Peskov's words.

You can see that there is movement with the mobilization, it is scary,” a young Russian who wants to remain anonymous told this newspaper.

The Kremlin's statements are an indication that it is preparing a new recruitment campaign.

The Russian Defense Ministry has announced the creation of two new armies and 14 divisions this year, and the independent newspaper

Viortska

revealed this Friday that Moscow plans to send another 300,000 soldiers to Ukraine in the short term, according to four presidential administration sources. and regional governments, as well as a high-ranking employee of the ministry.

The newspaper points out that the Kremlin wants to avoid another forced mobilization of the population.

Due to the unpopularity of this measure, enlistment centers would call earlier citizens who are still part of the reserve and conscripts who are now completing their mandatory military service and must be convinced to sign a professional contract with the army "for all the media”—it is prohibited by law to send young people who serve in the

military

to the front—.

The first mobilization, decreed by Putin in September 2022, was tremendously unpopular.

Hundreds of thousands of Russians fled the country and protests broke out in the poorest regions, the Kremlin's main recruiting ground.

In addition, more and more mobilized people have died or become disabled at the front, and Moscow warns that the survivors will not be demobilized until the end of the war.

This situation despairs their wives and mothers, who in recent months have begun to openly protest for them to return home.

Unable to arrest the relatives of its fighters due to the bad image it would cause, the Kremlin has reacted with arrests of journalists who have covered the protest events.

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