Moscow began a compulsory troop calling on Thursday to try to increase the stumbling block in Ukraine, with the authorities say thousands of people had volunteers even when Russians fled the country to avoid being forced to fight.
Amateur recordings posted on social media because President Vladimir Putin ordered a backup mobilization on Wednesday which was intended to show hundreds of Russians throughout the country responding to military calls.
The call came when the area controlled by Moscow in Ukraine will vote in the coming days of whether it will be part of Russia in a referendum that has been called land grabbing that violates the law by Kyiv and its allies.
Moscow took these steps after the Ukraine forces reclaimed most of the Northeast Kharkiv region, which had been seen as a turning point that might be in the seven-month war that had fallen into a deadlock.
The Russian military said on Thursday that at least 10,000 people had submitted themselves to fight in 24 hours since the order, but people also rushed to leave Russia before they were made to join.I don’t want to go to war,” a man named Dmitri, who has flown to Armenia with only one small bag, told AFP. “I don’t want to die in this unreasonable war. This is a scaticidal war.”
Military -aged men are the majority of those who come from the latest flights from Moscow at Armenia Airport and many are reluctant to speakJerevan has become the main destination for Russia who fled since the war began on February 24, withdrawing strong international opposition aimed at isolating Russia.
US Foreign Minister Antony Blinken on Thursday demanded Putin to be responsible because he faced Russia in the Security Council session where the United Nations was creating violations in Ukraine.We cannot – we will not – let President Putin escape just like that,” Blinken told the Security Council in a special session when the leaders met at the United Nations.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov – who was rejected by Blinken to meet individually since the February invasion – crashed into Western accusatioThere is an effort today to force us to a completely different narrative about Russian aggression as the origin of this tragedy,” Lavrov told the Security Council.
Confrontation on the diplomatic stage increased when officials installed by Kremlin in the Ukraine region controlled by Moscow troops promised on Thursday to move forward with annexation polls this week.
The four regions occupied by Russia in Ukraine-Donetsk and Lugansk in the East and Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the South-announced that they will hold voices for five days, starting on Friday.
Vladimir Balance, Head of Kherson, who was installed in Moscow, who fell earlier into the Russian invasion, said the referendum would continue in his territory regardless of the criticism.
The date has been set. We have the green light. Voting starts tomorrow and no one can prevent this,” he told the media managed by the Russian government.People have been waiting and they demanded that this vote immediately be held,” he addedWestern leaders who gathered in New York this week in a round voice condemned the ballots.
Speaking at the United Nations, US President Joe Biden accused Russian President Vladimir Putin shamelessly” violating the UN Charter with a war aimed at “extinguishing Ukraine’s right to exist as a country”.
The integration of regions that fight war to Russia will represent the great escalation of conflict, because Moscow can then try to say that defending his own territory from Ukraine forces.
After the votes were announced by proxy officials in Ukraine, Putin announced that Russia would call around 300,000 reserves to increase war efforts and warn that Moscow would use “all means” to protect his territory.
Former Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev said in a statement on social media that it means including strategic nuclear weapons”. He estimates that the voting area “will integrate to Russia”.For most observers, the results of the same voice have become a definite conclusion and are rushed because Ukraine forces made a big profit in a counterattack to reclaim the East.
The referendum reminded the similar voting in 2014 which witnessed the Crimean Peninsula in Ukraine which was annexed by Russia. Western Capitals said the voting was cheating and hit Moscow with sanctions in response.
Election officials in the Donetsk region, which have been partially controlled since 2014 by the separatist supported by Moscow, said that the voting will take place from door to door for the first days. But that is only possible in the polling station on the last day, Tuesday.
Putin’s steps this week to call backup to Ukraine triggered small protests throughout Russia, resulting in more than 1,300 people being detained.
Flights from Russia to neighboring countries, especially the former Soviet Republic which allowed Russian visa-free entering, almost entirely ordered and the price has skyrocketed, pointing to the Russian exodus who wanted to avoid going to war.
Seen lost and exhausted in the airport arrival hall in the Capital of Armenia, 44 -year -old Sergei said he had escaped from Russia to escape called.The situation in Russia will make anyone want to leave,” he told AFP on condition anonymity.
