Russia’s call divides the EU; Ukraine says it shows weakness

Kyiv, Ukraine –

Russia’s rush to mobilize hundreds of thousands of recruits to contain painful losses in Ukraine is a tacit admission that its “army is not capable of fighting,” Ukraine’s president said on Sunday, as divisions in Europe deepened. on whether to welcome or reject Russians fleeing the country. to call.

Speaking to US broadcaster CBS, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also said he is bracing for more Russian attacks on Ukraine’s power infrastructure as the Kremlin seeks to increase pressure on Ukraine and its Western backers as the weather gets colder. Zelenskyy warned that this winter “will be very difficult.”

“They will fire missiles and they will target our power grid. This is a challenge, but we are not afraid of that.” he said he on “Face the Nation.”

He described the Russian mobilization, their first such call since World War II, as a sign of weakness, not strength, saying: “They admitted that their army can no longer fight Ukraine.”

Although the European Union is now largely out of reach for most Russians, with direct flights halted and its land borders increasingly closed to them, an exodus of Russian men fleeing military service is dividing officials. Europeans on whether they should be given a safe haven.

The partial mobilization is also sparking protests in Russia, with new anti-war demonstrations on Sunday.

In Dagestan, one of Russia’s poorest regions in the North Caucasus, police fired warning shots to try to disperse more than 100 people who blocked a road while protesting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military call-up, they reported. Russian media.

Dozens of women chanted “No to war!” in the Dagestan capital of Makhachkala on Sunday. Videos from the protests showed women wearing headscarves shooing police away from the rally and standing in front of police cars carrying detained protesters, demanding their release.

Women also protested in the Siberian city of Yakutsk, chanting “No to genocide!” and marching in a circle around police, who then dragged some or forced them into police vans, according to videos shared by Russian media.

At least 2,000 people have been arrested in recent days for similar demonstrations in Russia. Many of those arrested have immediately received a summons.

Unconfirmed reports in the Russian media that the Kremlin may soon close Russia’s borders to men of fighting age are fueling panic and causing more people to flee.

German officials have expressed a desire to help Russian men deserting from military service and have called for a Europe-wide solution. Germany has offered the possibility of granting asylum to deserters and those who refuse compulsory military service.

In France, senators argue that Europe has a duty to help and have warned that failing to provide refuge to fleeing Russians could play into Putin’s hands, fueling his narrative of Western hostility towards Russia.

“Closing our borders would fit neither with our values ​​nor with our interests,” said a group of more than 40 French senators. Rejecting the fleeing Russians would be “a mistake by Europe in the ongoing war of communication and influence.”

However, other EU countries insist that Russian men fleeing now, as the war has entered its eighth month, should not be offered asylum. They include Lithuania, which borders Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave on the Baltic Sea. His foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, tweeted: “The Russians should stay and fight. Against Putin.”

His counterpart in Latvia, also an EU member bordering Russia, said the exodus poses “considerable security risks” for the 27-nation bloc and those fleeing now cannot be considered conscientious objectors as they did not act. when Russia invaded Ukraine in February. .

Many “were fine with killing Ukrainians, they didn’t protest then,” Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics tweeted. He added that they still have “a lot of countries outside the EU to go to.”

Finland also said it intends to “significantly restrict” the entry of Russians entering the EU through its border with Russia. A Finnish opposition leader, Petteri Orpo, said the Russian military reservists’ flight was an “obvious” security risk and that “we must put our national security first.”

Russia continues to press with its call-up of hundreds of thousands of men, seeking to reverse recent losses. Without control of the skies over Ukraine, Russia is also making increasing use of Iranian suicide drones, with more attacks reported on Sunday in the Black Sea port city of Odessa.

For Ukrainian and Russian military planners, time is running out, with the onset of winter expected to make the fighting that much more difficult. Rainy weather is already bringing muddy conditions that are beginning to limit the mobility of tanks and other heavy weapons, the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said Sunday.

But the think tank said Ukrainian forces are still gaining ground in their counteroffensive, launched in late August, which has pushed back Russian occupation in large areas of the northeast and also fueled Putin’s new reinforcement drive.

The Kremlin said its initial goal is to add about 300,000 troops to its invasion force, which is struggling with equipment losses, mounting casualties and sagging morale. The mobilization marks a radical departure from Putin’s previous attempts to portray the war as a limited military operation that would not interfere with the lives of most Russians.

The mobilization goes hand in hand with Kremlin-orchestrated votes in four occupied regions of Ukraine that could pave the way for their imminent annexation by Russia.

Ukraine and its Western allies say referendums in the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions and in the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions have no legal validity, not least because many tens of thousands of people have fled. They also call them “farce”. Some footage shows armed Russian troops going from door to door to pressure Ukrainians to vote.

The vote ends on Tuesday and there is no doubt that the Russian occupiers will declare it a success. The main questions then will be how soon the Putin regime will annex the four regions and how that will complicate the war.

——


AP writers Jari Tanner in Helsinki and John Leicester in Le Pecq, France, contributed.

Leave a Comment