Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered another 160,000 Russian citizens be called up to serve in the military, Russian news agency Interfax reported Monday.
Russia drafts men aged 18 to 30 years old. The new order, starting April 1 and to be completed by July 15, comes amid the ongoing negotiations for a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, brokered by the United States.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claims Russia is dragging out the peace process as it is preparing a massive new offensive to grab more Ukrainian land before actual peace talks.
“According to our intelligence, Russia is preparing for new offensives in Sumy, Kharkiv, and Zaporizhzhia regions,” Zelenskyy said last week.
“They are dragging out negotiations and trying to drag the U.S. into endless, meaningless discussions about fake conditions to buy time and then try to seize even more land. Putin wants to negotiate territory from a stronger position. He only thinks about war. So, our job — all of us — is defense in the broadest sense of the word,” he added.
Yet U.S. President Donald Trump, who on Sunday said he was “pissed off” by Putin’s desire to remove Zelenskyy from power for a peace treaty to become possible, still believes the Kremlin’s leader will stick to his word and that he wants the war to end.
Some conscripts will also be dismissed from the military, having served their terms. Independent Russian journalists managed to verify the names of over 100,000 Russian soldiers who have been killed since Putin invaded Ukraine, though Kyiv claims overall Russian losses are getting close to a million dead and wounded as of March.
Posted by John3262005
2 Comments
They do this twice a year every year including pre-war, once in the spring and again in autumn
This seems to align with recent estimates that Russia can only decline in armoured attacks from here on out due to their depleted reserves and equipment modernisation.