m.economictimes.com/news/defence/russia-unfurls-plan-to-formally-annex-swathes-of-ukraine/articleshow/94329964.cms
Russia unfurls plan to formally annex swathes of Ukraine
EuropeThey just want to push through the referendum so if/when Ukraine liberates luhansk and donezk then Russia can claim casus belli, as if the Ukraine attacked mainland Russia.
Russia is laying grounds for a general mobilisation, they can't do that for as long as it's a "special military operation".
I can smell the escalation from here.
Russia is laying grounds for a general mobilisation, they can't do that for as long as it's a "special military operation".
Yep. Also, today was passed new redaction of some laws, which were exactly about mobilization and some other related to war times things.
Where is low chance for full scale mobilization (coz that's how you commit suicide lol), but it's quite possible that conscript soldiers would be used as a result.
I think that Russia is trying to start selling in the idea of a draft, for as bad as that could be, losing the war would be as bad, or even worse for Putin. That is, if things stay the way they are, Ukraine has a high chance win, and then Putin loses everything. It Putin escalates to actual war internally, it won't be popular, and it's risky, but if this leads to victory for Russia, Putin has a chance, small but bigger than 0, of staying in power for a bit longer.
Putin is trying to do this not just for the ability to draft and pull forces, but also to not declare this a war of invasion, but one of defense. It'll be just enough that, as they hope, the UN won't be able to clearly declare it a war of aggression (i.e. Russia will have just enough to veto any attempt to declare it so, probably with support of China, who'd want the same excuse for Taiwan, and other countries will choose to sit on their hands after that) and therefore others won't be able to interfere. This will limit how much Russia can annex after the event, but at this point I think that Putin's willing to compromise a bit (I think they wanted to make the referendum cover more territory, but at this rate they may not get anything).
Ukraine has a lot of pressure to liberate enough to make any attempt to make such referendum not possible, forcing Russia to be open about what it's doing.
It's absolutely crazy that tens of thousands are going to die so that the ego of one man can be saved.
Not for the first time in history, and sadly probably not the last.
Welcome to human history. Putin in many ways is outdated, but in many ways is still just the same ol'.