But it boosts the strength of the professional armed forces, which is often relatively small. Talk of wider war in Europe and the potential need for mass mobilisation or a "citizen army" may sound alarming. But the head of the British Army Gen Sir Patrick Sanders is not alone in issuing a national call to prepare for a major conflict on European soil. But in an interview with Channel 4 News, Mr Zelensky said he was open to changing the law to allow for a wartime election. The votes are banned under wartime legislation and Mr Zelensky said in November that he was opposed to holding one because “now is the time of defence”. It also wants to know what Moscow has done to protect “the right of such children to preserve their identity, including nationality, name and family relations”.
It's quick to set up, and you can be confident that you're making a significant impact every month by supporting open, independent journalism. For a few years, the unprecedented patriotic surge of 2014 served as symbolic compensation for the socioeconomic problems that had already begun. Russians lapped up the real and imaginary threats that were fed to them, and generally assessed military action as justified, defensive, and/or preventative. U.S. and European sanctions could result in a subsequent economic fallout that will overwhelmingly hurt Russians’ pocketbooks — and further erode Putin’s support.
Russia threatens to seize £226bn in revenge for Western asset seizures
A number of European countries also rehearse for civil emergencies - with exercises that involve ordinary citizens as well as the military. As Gen Sir Patrick Sanders stated several times in his speech on Wednesday, "Ukraine really matters". Russia's ambitions, he said, were not just about seizing territory but "about defeating our system and way of life politically, psychologically and symbolically". Germany's Defence Minister, Boris Pistorius, recently told a German newspaper "we have to take into account that Vladimir Putin might even attack a Nato country one day". While he said such an attack is unlikely now, "our experts expect a period of five to eight years in which this could be possible". The UK's defence secretary has also warned that we need to be prepared for a war.
- Now a senior fellow at Johns Hopkins University, Pomerantsev shuttles between Washington, D.C., and Ukraine.
- Now it has downgraded the travel warning for the regions to “all but essential travel”, while maintaining the previous warning in the rest of Ukraine.
- He has worked in both London and Moscow, where he became an expert on Russian propaganda.
- Most ordinary Russians are in the middle, trying to make sense of a situation they didn't choose, don't understand and feel powerless to change.
- Around 80% of the male population complete some form of military service.
- Germany's Defence Minister, Boris Pistorius, recently told a German newspaper "we have to take into account that Vladimir Putin might even attack a Nato country one day".
A spate of Ukraine-linked attacks on Russia's oil infrastructure have reportedly led Moscow's energy ministry to propose restricting flights over energy facilities. Meanwhile, Indian thinktank Observer Research Foundation's Russia expert, Nandan Unnikrishnan, said India was unlikely to sign "any major military deal" with Russia because it would cross a red line with the US. "A frank and constructive dialogue is expected to improve relations between states," the Ukrainian president's office said on its official channel on the Telegram messaging app alongside a photo of Mr Szijjarto, Mr Kuleba and Mr Yermak. This could see states like Poland and the Baltics decide to aid Ukraine on their own, which "might leave NATO's eastern front vulnerable and cause a crisis within the EU and European NATO". He says Europe is rich enough to do so if it has the political will, pointing to a recent report from the Estonian Ministry of Defence suggesting that committing 0.25% of GDP annually towards Ukraine would provide "more than sufficient resources".
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An artillery strike that killed at least 25 people at a crowded market in Russian-occupied Donetsk shows Ukraine’s “vicious side”, the Kremlin has said. Ukraine’s defence intelligence said in December that rat-bite fever had been spreading rapidly among Russian soldiers on the Kupyansk front. The man, 49, and his daughter, 31, were caught up in an attack at 9.25am on Kramatorsk, Donetsk, governor Vadim Filashkin said. Now it has downgraded the travel warning for the regions to “all but essential travel”, while maintaining the previous warning in the rest of Ukraine. Neither Ukraine, nor Slovakia, nor any other country,” spokesman Oleh Nikolenko said in response to Robert Fico’s remarks.
“The problem with the Putin essay is that it is so thoroughly wrong on everything that it is hard to know where to begin,” he told CNN in an email, citing an example of the use of the term “Ukraine” as far back as 1648. The poll was completed before Putin’s announcement that Russia would send what he called “peacekeepers” into the regions. But Pozner argued that Russians understand an invasion of Ukraine would be costly. And most Ukrainians reject Russian President Vladimir Putin’s assertion in a speech on Monday that their country has no historical basis and is essentially a creation of the Soviet Union.
Neither a majority of Russians nor Ukrainians say the two countries should be one, but one in three Russians does think so
Mr Putin has a long record of masterfully manipulating public sentiment. By siding with the more militant part of the pro-war camp, which has long demanded mobilisation, Mr Putin may force doubters to pick a side and thus polarise society. He calculates that the greater (though still limited) involvement of the Russian population in Ukraine may push Russians to support their boys in uniform more strongly. It will drive a wedge between families whose members fight, and those whose run for the border or curse the war. According to recent opinion polls, conducted by pollsters such as the Levada Centre which has offices in Moscow, 70-75% of respondents in Russia support the war with Ukraine.