How could he NOT?
His people are leaving the country by the hundreds of thousands….
Conscript’s ARE being sent straight to front line fighting units without training and other Logistical (Food, uniforms, weapons, living quarters?) support…
His people are protesting in the streets….
There are mass arrest’s…
So many fellow officals have begun to complaint that he can’t put all of them in jail….
Puin also annouces he will claim territory (4 provinces) conquered as Russia’s own shortly based on a sham vote this week just like he did with the Crimea….
The Ukrainan’s vow to continue fighting to take back the lost territory ….
The Ukraine military continue to reclaim territory in the North east Ukraine and the Russian’s try make small gains in the South….
Land routes for Russian to flee their country are closing up…..
More leaks forund in the Nord Stream gas pipeline….
President Biden keeps advertishing more and MORE weapons for the Ukraine, but one should be aware that some of the stuff will NOT get to the Ukraine for months or even years….More and more things will NOT be off the shelf from American military stores, but staright from eapons manufactures factories…..The Ukraine WILL BE a very heavily armed nation in the future after the conflict with Russia….
Here’s what we know:
The Russian president’s remarks, which were shown on state television, came after anger with the draft spilled over into street protests across Russia.
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Ukraine Update….208 days into the Russian move on the Ukraine….
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Putin concedes that some men were wrongly drafted.
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With annexation plans, Putin escalates a battle of wills with the West.
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U.S. decries Russian move to annex parts of Ukraine as a ‘land grab.’
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What to know about Russia’s annexation of four Ukrainian provinces.
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A sergeant who died fighting in eastern Donetsk is brought home for burial.
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Russia beat and denied food to prisoners of war, Ukraine says.
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Ukraine closes in on a rail hub that is helping Russia hold its line in the east….
Russian annexation
- Separatist leaders from Russian-occupied portions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia are in Moscow to complete the procedure of Russian annexation of Ukrainian territory, Kirill Stremousov, a Russian-installed official from Kherson, said in a Telegram post. He shared a group photo of the arrival and called it a “happy ending.”
- Putin is set to address lawmakers Friday at 3 p.m. local time (8 a.m. Eastern time). The ceremony will take place in the Grand Kremlin Palace to sign “agreements on the accession of new territories into the Russian Federation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. The inflammatory move appears likely to slam the door on diplomacy for years to come and almost certainly ensures further escalation of the war, with Kyiv vowing to fight to reclaim all of its lands.
- The annexation requires a number of procedural sign-offs within Russia, including votes from both houses in Russia’s parliament, the State Duma and the Federation Council, to approve the treaty, as happened when Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014. The United States, Canada and the European Union have all vowed never to recognize the annexed land as part of Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv was working with Western allies to firm up support against annexation.
- The White House has said it is working with “allies and partners to impose additional economic costs on Russia,” should annexation go ahead. “You can expect additional measures from us in the coming days,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said this week.
- United Nations Secretary General António Guterres said Russia’s annexation plans “cannot be reconciled with the international legal framework; it stands against everything the international community is meant to stand for; it flouts the purposes and principles of the United Nations; it is a dangerous escalation; it has no place in the modern world.” In a Thursday news briefing, he said that Russia, as one of five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, has a “particular responsibility” to respect the U.N. charter.
Nord Stream explosions
- A total of four leaks in the Nord Stream pipelines have been reported, after the Swedish coast guard confirmed Thursday that there were two leaks in Sweden’s economic zone and two in Denmark’s. Investigations into the cause of the explosions are continuing.
- The E.U. and several nations suspect sabotageand have blamed Russia, which denies causing any damage to the underwater energy infrastructure in the Baltic Sea, which supplies gas to Western Europe. NATO said Thursday that current evidence shows the leaks were “the result of deliberate, reckless, and irresponsible acts of sabotage.” The alliance vowed it would defend against “hybrid tactics.”
- Putin called it “unprecedented sabotage, in fact, an act of international terrorism against the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines,” in a phone call with Turkey’s president, according to a Kremlin readout.
- Russia has denied any involvement and blames the United States. Its Foreign Ministry said Thursday that the leaks occurred in the trade and economic zones of “NATO-centric countries” that are completely “controlled by the U.S. intelligence services.” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said: “This looks like an act of terrorism, possibly on a state level. … It is very difficult to imagine that such an act of a terrorism could have happened without the involvement of a state of some kind.” The Kremlin has said it was not in Russia’s economic interest to damage the pipelines and called for a U.N. Security Council meeting. A U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the United States had nothing to do with any attack, calling the idea “preposterous.”
- The damage to the Nord Stream pipelines could result in the largest single release of methane into the atmosphere ever recorded, experts said. The Danish Energy Agency said sections of the damaged pipes contained 778 million cubic meters of natural gas, which, if it reached the atmosphere, would be equivalent to about 1/1,000th of estimated annual global methane emissions, according to calculations by scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Gas Hydrates Project.
Battlefield updates
- The United States will provide a $1.1 billion weapons package to Ukraine over the next few years, including 18 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) launchers, a “core component of Ukraine’s fighting force in the future,” a senior U.S. defense official told reporters Wednesday, speaking on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the Pentagon. Defense officials said nearly 20 other nations have also agreed to accelerate arms production to replace Ukraine’s Soviet-era equipment with modern systems used by NATO.
- Russian lawmakers have lashed out at those fleeing to avoid military conscription. Eligible citizens who are registered with the military are “forbidden to leave … without the permission of the military commissariats,” Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the State Duma, said on Telegram. Thousands of men are scrambling to the border or rushing for flights to avoid being conscripted to fight in Ukraine. “The better off and well educated are over-represented amongst those attempting to leave Russia,” Britain’s Defense Ministry said Thursday in a daily update.
- At least 19 people were injured when Russian strikes hit Dnipropetrovsk, regional governor Valentyn Reznichenko said. He said the attack occurred around 8 a.m. local time and targeted industrial infrastructure and damaged homes, power lines and buildings with cluster shells. The Washington Post could not independently verify the account.
- Russia continues to send “newly-mobilized and undertrained recruits” to reinforce depleted units in Ukraine, according to an assessment from the Institute for the Study of War think tank. The Russian Defense Ministry also said Wednesday that training for mobilized reservists has started in multiple places across the country. But readying those new troops will be challenging for the Kremlin, a U.S. official told reporters, given the logistics necessary to supply and train them….