Unfazed by the illegal annexation of four areas, Ukrainian troops have successfully advanced their counter-offensive in recent days. Special attention was paid to the liberation of the strategically important town of Lyman in the eastern region of Donetsk. Meanwhile, the Russian partial mobilization failed and was accompanied by errors, as the Russian side itself has repeatedly admitted.
Also on the diplomatic scene, the West once again clearly reacted to Russia’s escalation through annexations and the partial mobilization of at least 300,000 reservists: Russian ambassadors were summoned to several European countries, including Austria. Nine NATO members from Central and Eastern Europe jointly condemned Putin’s illegal annexation of the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia.
According to a survey, about 83% of Ukrainians support NATO membership. This is the highest agreement since the beginning of the research. Only four percent of the Ukrainian population spoke out against this in a poll by a research institute in Kyiv. In November 2021 – that is, before the Russian invasion – only 55% of Ukrainians wanted to join NATO. Ukraine submitted an application for accelerated NATO membership on Friday.
AKW boss free again
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the head of the Ukrainian nuclear plant in Zaporizhia, who was arrested by Russia, was released and returned to his family. According to the state operator of the Ukrainian nuclear power plant Energoatom, the head of the nuclear power plant was stopped and taken away by a Russian patrol on Friday en route from the nuclear plant to the city of Enerhodar. According to Energoatom, Murashov is responsible for nuclear safety at the plant in Zaporizhia in his post.
The biggest nuclear power plant in Europe has been occupied by Russian troops since March. The facility was the target of repeated attacks in the final weeks of Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, for which Moscow and Kyiv blamed each other. The bombing and fighting near the nuclear plant fueled fears of a nuclear catastrophe.
threat of nuclear weapons
Russian threats to use nuclear weapons caused unrest – also in the context of a Russian army that was increasingly under pressure. “In view of the internal panic in the Russian Federation and the increasing military defeats, the risk of this is increasing,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podoliak told German media.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock expressed concern about Putin’s repeated nuclear bomb threats. But she stressed that the federal government in Berlin would not allow itself to be blackmailed.
During the partial mobilization, the Kremlin chief said on September 21: “If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, then of course we will use all means at our disposal to defend Russia and our people. This is not a bluff.” .
With the annexations, Putin also sees Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia as Russian territory. The Russian parliament ratified the internationally unrecognized annexations on Monday. More than 400 deputies unanimously voted for the inclusion of regions in the Russian Federation.
For the time being, there can be no talk of secure Russian dominance in the annexed areas. On the one hand, most areas were not even under Russian control at the time of incorporation. In addition, the occupiers reported on Monday about numerous attempts by Ukraine to break through the front lines. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had previously reported new successes in recapturing cities.
In the Luhansk region, Ukrainian soldiers have already settled near the city of Lysychansk, a military spokesman for the Moscow-controlled Luhansk separatists wrote on the Telegram news service. Ukrainian units are under constant fire from the Russian army. Combat zone reports cannot be independently verified.
“As soon as the Ukrainian flag returned, no one remembers the Russian farce with no documents and no annexations,” Zelenskyy said in his video speech on Monday night.
Significant issues with partial mobilization
According to British intelligence, Russia is facing considerable problems with its partial deployment. According to the British Ministry of Defence, conscripted reservists are temporarily gathering in camps. This indicates that the military is having trouble training recruits and finding officers to lead new units. The secret services also strongly assume that since the partial mobilization was announced on September 21, Russians who do not fit the definition of the recruitment wave have already been recruited.
The governor of Russia’s eastern Khabarovsk region confirmed this on Monday: According to this, half of the “several thousand” recruits in this region have already returned. Therefore, they were confiscated even though they did not meet the criteria. The responsible head of the military replacement district office was fired, Mikhail Degtyarev wrote on the Telegram news channel. The governor did not explain how the errors could have happened.
Hundreds of thousands of Russians fled abroad to avoid being sent to military service. The mobilization, which was rejected by much of the population, also triggered the biggest anti-war protests in months. There were also arson attacks on recruitment offices. The Russian president himself said last week that all errors in the call-up of reservists must be “corrected”.
Ukraine gains ground on the southern front
Ukrainian forces are gaining ground on the southern front of the Kherson region. While the government in Kyiv initially did not officially comment on the course of the war on Monday, Russian military bloggers described how Ukrainian armored units advanced along the Dnipro River. An adviser to Kyiv’s Interior Ministry, Anton Gerashchenko, released a video showing Ukrainian soldiers raising their national flag in the village of Solota Balka. The area lies between the cities of Kherson and Zaporizhia, whose regions Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday declared annexed.
The annexation, which has been criticized as a violation of international law, is only complete when several laws for the integration of the areas have been passed. The State Duma wanted to pass the laws on Monday. Subsequent approval by the Federation Council is considered a mere formality. So Putin has yet to sign the incorporation laws.
The occupiers assume that a major Russian offensive will begin in eastern and southern Ukraine. Separatist leader Denis Puschilin in Donetsk was confident on state television on Monday that the situation at the front would develop in the occupiers’ favor. Partial mobilization brings new personnel and new technology to combat areas, he said. “That’s why the picture of what’s happening at the front is going to change. In a positive way,” Puschilin said after numerous defeats for the Russian army, which also gave up on the strategically important town of Lyman over the weekend. There are already successes in the Bachmut area, said Puschilin.