Thursday 22 September 2022 04:11 PM Ukraine war: Putin 'paves the way for 1million Russian to be drafted' trends now

Thursday 22 September 2022 04:11 PM Ukraine war: Putin 'paves the way for 1million Russian to be drafted' trends now
Thursday 22 September 2022 04:11 PM Ukraine war: Putin 'paves the way for 1million Russian to be drafted' trends now

Thursday 22 September 2022 04:11 PM Ukraine war: Putin 'paves the way for 1million Russian to be drafted' trends now

Vladimir Putin has paved the way for up to 1million Russians to be conscripted into the armed forces and sent to fight in Ukraine, it has been claimed. 

The despot yesterday announced that 300,000 people with previous combat experience or specialist skills will be sent to the frontlines in Ukraine, with the first batches seen kissing their loved ones goodbye today. 

However, the official order was published with a paragraph ominously blanked out. Putin's spokesman says it relates to the number who can be called, and a source within the presidential palace now claims it says '1million'.

The document also makes no mention of previous combat experience and sets no limits on who can be summoned except those who are too old, sick or in jail - opening the door for virtually anyone to be drafted. 

Newly-conscripted Russian men have bidden an emotional farewell to their tearful wives and families

Newly-conscripted Russian men have bidden an emotional farewell to their tearful wives and families

Children and partners were weeping as they said goodbye to the men who have been drafted into the war

Children and partners were weeping as they said goodbye to the men who have been drafted into the war

Putin announced a partial mobilisation yesterday and vowed to use 'all available means' to deter future attacks

Putin announced a partial mobilisation yesterday and vowed to use 'all available means' to deter future attacks

Vladimir Putin is pictured today, speaking to the chief of a state-owned Russian mortgage company in the Kremlin

Vladimir Putin is pictured today, speaking to the chief of a state-owned Russian mortgage company in the Kremlin

'The figure [to be called up] was corrected several times, and in the end they settled on a million,' the source told opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta.

Anecdotal evidence from some of Russia's many regions, where military commissars are already to rounding up people for the frontlines, indicated the net is being cast far wider that Putin suggested.

Videos from Chechnya and Yakutia showed large numbers of men - some of them middle aged - being loaded on to buses to take them off to war. 

Andrew Roth, of The Guardian, also claimed to have spoken to people living in a small village in Buryatia - in Russia's far east - where 20 people out of 450 had been handed papers, or around 5 per cent of the population.

Repeated country-wide, that would yield a force far larger than 300,000.

It appears the draft is currently focused in Russia's poorer and more-remote eastern regions, likely because Putin feels less-threatened by unrest there than in his western power-bases of Moscow or St Petersburg.

However, it seems not everyone in the west is immune - with human rights groups reporting that some activists arrested overnight for protesting the war are being handed draft papers inside the police station.

Officers in four stations around the capital are said to be drafting dissenters into the armed forces, human rights group OVD-Info told CNN, with at least one being threatened with 15 years in jail if they refuse.

Meanwhile the General SVR Telegram channel also claimed the 300,000 figure was 'false' - saying the actual target is 500,000 this year, and 500,000 next.

The channel, which claims insider Kremlin sources, also claimed the 'general estimate of losses by March next year is about 300,000 killed and wounded'.

At least 300,000 reservists have been sent to battle in a dramatic escalation of Putin's savage invasion

At least 300,000 reservists have been sent to battle in a dramatic escalation of Putin's savage invasion

A child is held up to a bus window to say goodbye to their father being taken to the front lines

A child is held up to a bus window to say goodbye to their father being taken to the front lines

There are fears the conscription will see more civilian men of fighting age drafted into the brutal seven-month conflict

There are fears the conscription will see more civilian men of fighting age drafted into the brutal seven-month conflict

Britain's Ministry of Defence said it will take months for the new recruits to be fully prepared for war despite Putin's attempts to bolster his flagging campaign

Britain's Ministry of Defence said it will take months for the new recruits to be fully prepared for war despite Putin's attempts to bolster his flagging campaign

Pavel Chikov, a Russian human rights lawyer, said the decree allows conscription 'in the broadest possible terms.'

'The president is leaving it at the Defense Minister's discretion,' Chikov said. 'So in fact it is the Russian Defense Ministry that will decide who will be sent to war, from where and in what numbers.'

James Heappey, a British defence minister, said today that 300,000 men conscripted into the military would 'suffer horribly for the Kremlin' hubris'.

Speaking in the House of Commons, he said: 'Putin is rattled and his tactics transparent. He is implicitly acknowledging his heavy losses and his armed forces' ability to achieve any of their objectives. His false narratives, escalatory rhetoric, nuclear sabre-rattling are all, bluntly, admissions of failure.'

Mr Heappey said Mr Putin and his defence minister Sergei

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