Russia is going to mobilize 300 thousand military from June 1, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.
“I can say that Russia is preparing the mobilization of 300 thousand additional military for June 1”, the Interfax-Ukraine news agency quoted Zelensky as saying.
The head of state, when asked how many recruits will be mobilized into the Ukrainian army this year, explained that it will be less than 500 thousand.
“As for the individual number of people who will be mobilized, I can not say… Half a million we do not need”, Zelensky added.
At the end of March, Verstka sources reported that Russian authorities plan to mobilize at least 300,000 people to launch an operation to encircle Kharkiv. According to one of them, “no one wants to turn Ukraine’s second largest city it into a second Mariupol”, so “there is an idea” to make it a showcase of how the Russians “know how to fight in a civilized manner”.
As part of “mobilization 2.0”, reservists, those who have had mobilization orders pasted on their military tickets and conscripts who will be forced to sign a contract may be taken to the front. A full-fledged second wave of mobilization has not been ruled out.
The Kremlin considers the capture of Kharkiv a “realistic goal”, after which the war may gradually come to an end, Meduza wrote. Prior to that, Putin repeatedly said that in order to stop regular shelling of the Belgorod region it is necessary to create a “sanitary zone” around it. At the same time, the Russian region is being shelled precisely from the Kharkiv region of Ukraine.
