Moscow is planning to conscript locals from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine, the Ukrainian armed forces have claimed.
“The Russian occupiers plan to mobilise local residents in the temporarily occupied territory of the Zaporizhzhia region in order to replenish current losses,” the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine wrote in an update.
They added that the city of Melitopol was being targeted, suggesting that men of conscription age will be required “to come to the military commissariat in the near future.”
Elsewhere, Vladimir Putin has said the threat of nuclear war over Ukraine is growing – but insists Russia will not be the one to strike first.
“We haven’t gone mad, we realise what nuclear weapons are”, Mr Putin said in a televised meeting of the Human Rights Council yesterday.
“We have these means in more advanced and modern form than any other nuclear country… but we aren’t about to run around the world brandishing this weapon like a razor,” the Russian president, who invaded Ukraine in February and called it a “special military operation”, said.
The Russian president had placed the Kremlin’s strategic nuclear forces on high alert during the initial stages of the invasion of Ukraine.
