Vladimir Putin orders an immediate partial mobilization in Russia. The EU therefore wants to prepare further sanctions against Russia. The news ticker.
- partial mobilization: 300,000 Russian reservists are to be mobilized.
- Sham referendums in occupied territories: Russia wants to forestall a counteroffensive.
- Editor’s note: All news about Ukraine conflict read in this news ticker. The information comes partly from warring parties in the Ukraine war and cannot be directly verified independently.
+++ 10.30 a.m.: The European Union wants to react to the partial mobilization announced by Putin with further sanctions against Russia. Final decisions would follow. “It is clear that Russia is trying to destroy Ukraine,” said EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Wednesday evening (September 21, local time) after a special meeting of EU foreign ministers on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.
“We will take new restrictive measures at both a personal and sectoral level,” Borrell continued, according to the German Press Agency (dpa) away. This should be done in coordination with the international partners. Accordingly, the new punitive measures would have further effects on the Russian economy, for example on the technology sector. According to Borrell, Ukraine should also receive more weapons. However, he has not yet given any details.
+++ 08.45 a.m.: According to the Ukrainian General Staff, Russia is forcibly relocating residents in the occupied Luhansk region. According to the General Staff, Russian troops forcibly took residents from villages in the Svativskyi district, which lies across the Oskil River from the liberated Izium, to more distant occupied territories.
Ukraine-News: Thousands of people arrested after protest in Russia
Update from Thursday, September 22, 6:50 a.m.: Several thousand people protested in Russia after the Kremlin announced that 300,000 reservists would be called up. According to the civil rights portal OVD-Info, the police arrested more than 1,380 protesters in 38 cities by Wednesday evening (September 21), most of them in St. Petersburg and Moscow. That reports the German Press Agency (dpa).
In Moscow, people shouted “No to war!” and demanded a “Russia without Putin”. Photos and videos showed police roughly grabbing the mostly young demonstrators and dragging them onto buses. From there, those arrested were taken to police stations. There were similarly large protests in the days immediately after the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24.
Many young men fled Russia on Wednesday to avoid the risk of being called up. According to media reports, the prices for plane tickets to Turkey, Serbia, Kazakhstan, Georgia and Armenia have skyrocketed.
Ukraine War News: Chief of Armed Forces Unfazed by Putin’s Announcement
+++ 9.20 p.m.: After Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the head of the country’s armed forces has now also appeared unimpressed by Putin’s announcement of partial mobilization. “No statement by the military or political leadership of the aggressor has any impact on our willingness to fight for our freedom,” Valery Zalushny, commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, said in a statement on the social media platform Facebook.
“The enemy’s large-scale offensive” would not have terrified the people fighting for their country in Ukraine, but only allowed them to grow closer together. Russia’s new plans would not change that. Zalushnyi announced that his people will continue to fight: “We will destroy anyone who enters our country with weapons – whether of their own free will or as a result of mobilization.”
Ukraine war: Lithuania and US support Ukraine with kamikaze drones
+++ 7.25 p.m.: Both the USA and the Baltic state of Lithuania have announced that they will support Ukraine with the delivery of so-called kamikaze drones. News portal reports Ukrainska Pravda According to the US Department of Defense confirmed that Ukraine would soon receive another shipment of weapons from the United States. There are also military drones of the type Switchblade 600 worth a total of 2.2 million US dollars. Manufacturer is the US company AeroVironment.
Lithuania has also announced plans to deliver 37 kamikaze drones from a Polish manufacturer to the Ukrainian army in October or November. The delivery will be financed from a Lithuanian fundraising campaign for Ukraine.
Ukraine war: Putin wants to ‘drown Ukraine in the blood of his own soldiers’
+++ 3.30 p.m.: The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj has also commented on the announced partial mobilization in Russia. This move would show that Moscow has problems with its military personnel. “We already know they mobilized cadets, guys who couldn’t fight. These cadets have fallen. They couldn’t even finish their education,” Zelenskyy said in an interview with the Bild. They came to Ukraine to die. Russian President Vladimir Putin needs “an army worth millions,” but sees “that his units are simply running away,” Zelenskyy said. Putin wants to “drown Ukraine in blood, but also in the blood of his own soldiers.”
News about the Ukraine war: Klitschko calls for “radical annihilation”.
+++ 2.40 p.m.: After the renewed nuclear threat from Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko called on what he saw as the “civilized world” to “radically destroy evil”. “The mobilization announced by Putin and the nuclear threats will not help the aggressor in his quest to subjugate and destroy Ukraine and Ukrainians,” the 50-year-old said in a statement on Wednesday. The “tyrant” Putin has started processes in Russia that would ruin him himself. It was no longer time to talk about “any illusory peace negotiations,” emphasized the ex-boxing world champion.
News about the Ukraine war: Partial mobilization in Russia – Putin creates new facts
+++ 12.10 p.m.: Almost seven months after the start of the Ukraine war, Vladimir Putin ordered the immediate partial mobilization of his own armed forces in a TV speech (see update from 8:55 a.m.). According to Putin, the partial mobilization means that reservists will be drafted. They would get the same status and the same pay as the current contract soldiers and would receive military training again before going to the front, he assured.
Kyiv reacted with mockery to Putin’s ordered partial mobilization. “Is everything still going according to plan or not?” Asked Presidential Advisor Mykhailo Podoliak on twitter. The war planned for “three days” has already lasted 210 days. The Russians, who demanded Ukraine’s annihilation, have now received mobilization, closed borders, blocked accounts and prison sentences for deserters, among other things. “Life has a wonderful sense of humor,” concluded Podoljak.
News on the Ukraine war: Donetsk and Kherson bosses ask Putin for help
Update from Wednesday, September 21, 06:35: The Moscow-backed separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, as well as the Donetsk and Zaporizhia regions captured in the war, are planning referendums from September 23-27. They announced this on Tuesday. The heads of administration in Donetsk and Kherson approached Putin directly. They asked him to support joining Russia. “This event will restore historical justice,” said Donetsk separatist leader Denis Puschilin.
It is difficult to say how many people are in the parts of Ukraine controlled by Moscow. The population there has been severely decimated since February through death, flight or deportation to Russia. According to estimates, Moscow still occupies more than a sixth of Ukraine’s territory, including Crimea, despite the Ukrainian counter-offensive.
News on the Ukraine war: Kyiv reports advance in Luhansk
+++ 09.15 a.m.: According to the Ukrainian armed forces, they have advanced further in the Luhansk region. Governor Serhiy Hajday wrote in the Messenger service Telegram that Ukrainian troops had regained complete control over the Luhansk village of Bilohorivka and were preparing to fight to recapture the entire province. It will be fought for every inch: “The enemy is preparing his defense. So we won’t just march in.” .
Update from Tuesday, September 20, 6:40 a.m.: President Zelenskyy wants a complaint about the Russian war of aggression before the United Nations General Assembly in New York wear. “There will be important signals from our state,” he announced in a speech on Monday evening. The Ukrainian head of state is scheduled to speak via video link on Wednesday.
Ukraine-News: Kyiv is planning another counter-offensive
First report from September 19: Kyiv/Moscow – In the Ukraine war, the Ukrainian armed forces provide the Russian invaders faced major problems with their counter-offensive. Now the Ukrainian President resigned Volodymyr Selenskyj new attacks on the occupied territory in Ukraine. “Perhaps it seems to some of you that after a series of victories there has been silence, but it is not silence,” Zelenskyy said in his daily video address. Rather, this is the preparation for the next offensive, the goal of which is the recapture of Mariupol, Melitopol and Cherson.
According to Zelenskyy, Ukraine will not only focus on the areas it controlled before the Russian attack in February. The 44-year-old announced that the territories of the Moscow-backed separatists in the east of the country and cities in Crimea, which had been annexed by Russia since 2014, would also be recaptured. “All of Ukraine must be free.” (with agencies)