![]() ![]() Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the claims as “nonsense” on Wednesday. Ukraine’s intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, issued a similar warning Monday, alleging that Russia has covertly begun preparations for a broad mobilization. “He’s been rolling the pitch, laying the ground for being able to say, ‘Look, this is now a war against Nazis, and what I need is more people,’” British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace told LBC Radio last week. Some Western officials and observers believe Putin may use May 9 to formally declare a war and announce a total mobilization of the population to boost troop numbers for an offensive. Some Russian hard-liners have criticized the Kremlin for using only a limited force and urged a nationwide mobilization effort. In an interview this week, Lavrov said: “Our military isn’t going to artificially link its action to any date, including Victory Day.” UPPING THE ANTE Significant gains look all but impossible before May 9. The Russian military has rearmed and resupplied its forces withdrawn from Kyiv and moved them to Donbas in an apparent attempt to encircle and destroy the most capable and seasoned Ukrainian troops concentrated there.īut that offensive in the east has faced staunch Ukrainian defenses and made only incremental advances, dashing Kremlin hopes for a quick victory. That conflict erupted weeks after Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. Some in Ukraine and the West expected Putin to try to seek quick gains before the May 9 holiday in a possible attempt to present it as a decisive victory and use it as an exit from what increasingly looks like a disastrous quagmire bleeding Russia’s resources and threatening its stability.Īfter a failed attempt to storm Kyiv and other big cities in Ukraine’s north in the early stages of the war, the Kremlin has shifted its focus to the eastern industrial heartland known as the Donbas, where Moscow-backed rebels have been fighting Ukrainian government forces since 2014. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov fired back by drawing a parallel between Zelenskyy and Adolf Hitler - a statement that has drawn sharp criticism from Israel. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is Jewish, has derided the Kremlin “denazification” claim. The rhetoric also has been used by the Kremlin to try to bolster public support for the war amid heavy losses of troops and equipment and massive economic damage from Western sanctions. To try to back up the claim, Putin and his officials have pointed to the adulation by Ukraine’s right-wing groups of nationalist leaders Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych, who sided with the Nazis during World War II and their perceived use of Nazi units’ symbols. In ordering the invasion, Putin declared that it was aimed at the “demilitarization” of Ukraine to remove a perceived military threat to Russia by “neo-Nazis” - rhetoric condemned by Ukraine and the West as a fictitious cover for a blunt act of aggression. ![]()
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