Ukraine crisis: After Russian ‘pullout’, separatists call for ‘full mobilization’
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Even as Russia claimed a partial pullout of its armed forces from the Crimean Peninsula—whose veracity the West continues to suspect—a separatist, pro-Russian leader in eastern Ukraine has ordered a full military mobilization amid growing invasion fears.
The separatist, Denis Pushilin, who heads the pro-Russian government in the Donetsk region, on Saturday announced a full troop mobilization and urged reservists to show up at military enlistment offices, the media reported.
The move comes amid a recent spike in violence along the line of contact between the Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed rebels in the region that further fueled Western fears Moscow could use it as a pretext for an invasion.
Separatist officials in Donetsk and Luhansk announced on Friday a mass evacuation of women, children, and the elderly to neighboring Russia. Shortly after the evacuation effort started, several explosions hit the rebel-controlled areas, viewed as a pressure tactic and show of strength to achieve Moscow’s strategic and geopolitical objectives without going to war.
The separatist conflict, which erupted in eastern Ukraine in 2014, has killed over 14,000 people, according to reports.
On Tuesday and Thursday, Russia had announced the pullout of its military forces from the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
“Units of the southern military district that ended tactical exercises at training grounds on the Crimean Peninsula are returning by rail to their permanent bases,” the Russian defense ministry said in a statement.
Russia’s state-run TV showed columns of military hardware crossing a recently constructed bridge connecting the Peninsula to the Russian mainland.
The West has estimated that Russia has deployed over 100,000 troops around Ukraine to pressurize or invade it. NATO, the United States, and European leaders rejected the Russian claims, saying there is no meaningful drawdown of troops. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said Moscow’s military personnel were actually rotating.
Russia had annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and supported pro-Moscow separatists in fighting that broke out eight years ago.
