Wary of Ukraine’s counteroffensive, Russia clamps martial law in 4 annexed regions

Virendra Pandit

New Delhi: Despite wanton destruction and a massive death count because of the Russian invasion since February 24, Ukraine has refused to budge and even won back thousands of square km of the area from the increasingly war-fatigued and reluctant Russian army—this has forced Moscow to clamp martial law in the four Ukrainian regions it annexed on September 30 after a so-called ‘referendum’.

Now, Russia fears Ukraine can extend the war into the Russian mainland, including the four annexed regions where its hold is tenuous.

On September 30, Russia, amid the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, unilaterally declared the annexation of four Ukrainian regions—Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson—which made up about 15 percent (90,000 sq km) of Ukraine’s territory and none were fully under Russian control at the time.

But short-lived victories and annexations are fraught with counterattacks.

That was why a wary President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday he was introducing martial law in four Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine that Moscow last month claimed as its own territory but is struggling to defend from Ukrainian advances, the media reported.

In televised remarks to members of his Security Council, he also instructed the government to set up a special coordinating council under Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin to work with Russia’s regions to boost Moscow’s war effort.

After eight months of the war, these Russian moves marked Moscow’s latest attempts to counter a series of major defeats at the hands of Ukrainian forces since the start of September.

By extending the war to regions beyond Ukraine, Kyiv ensured that more of Russia’s population, already chastened by a partial mobilization announced last month, would feel the consequences of the war in their own lives.

The Kremlin decree ordered an “economic mobilization” in eight regions adjoining Ukraine, including Crimea, which Russia invaded and annexed in 2014, and said movement in and out of the regions would be restricted. Recently, suspected Ukrainian agents had blown up a major part of a key bridge linking Crimea with the Russian mainland, thus immobilizing major supplies.

Now, Putin has conferred additional powers on the leaders of all of Russia’s 80-plus regions to protect critical facilities, maintain public order, and increase production in support of Moscow’s “special military operation” in Ukraine.

The measures came on the same day that Russian-installed officials in Kherson, one of the four occupied regions, told civilians to leave some areas as soon as possible in anticipation of an imminent Ukrainian attack.

Putin said the steps he was ordering would increase the stability of the economy and industry and boost production in support of the military effort.

“We are working on solving very complex, large-scale tasks to ensure a reliable future for Russia, the future of our people,” he said.