Russia has reportedly begun forced ‘mobilization’ in those parts of the Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Kharkiv oblasts which have fallen under its control since its fully-fledged invasion of Ukraine on 24 February. It was already known that the invaders have forcibly taken medical staff from Mariupol, leaving virtually no doctors for the city under siege. Ukraine’s Military Intelligence [HUR] reported on 23 April that such ‘mobilization’ of medical workers was being applied in other areas under Russian occupation. In Vovchansk (Kharkiv oblast), junior medical personnel have been forcibly sent to the frontline to provide primary medical aid to wounded Russian soldiers. They have been told they will be shot if they refuse. The report also states that measures are underway to forcibly mobilize young people from occupied territory of the Kharkiv, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. The Russians have made it virtually impossible to leave the Kherson oblast for territory under Ukrainian control, and have even severely restricted people from leaving for the Russian Federation. In occupied parts of the Zaporizhzhia oblast, the Russian military, together with Russia’s FSB [security service] are searching for men of mobilization age. For obviously reasons, HUR does not name its sources, but states that it is specifically such forcibly mobilized Ukrainians who are supposed to supplement Russian units “in the most problematical areas”. Such measures are being carried out, they note, despite the pro-Ukrainian sentiments of the population in such occupied cities and the general motivation to resist the Russian invaders. On 20 April, HUR suggested that Moscow is actually planning pseudo ‘referendums’ on occupied territory in the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts in order to declare forced ‘mobilization’. After carrying out these ‘referendums at gunpoint’, the Russian FSB will send such supposedly ‘mobilized’ Ukrainians to the places where the fiercest fighting is taking place. The idea is thus to storm the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ positions and “effectively to destroy Ukrainian through the hands of Ukrainians themselves.”
via khpg: Russia is forcibly ‘mobilizing’ Ukrainians from occupied territory to fight its war against Ukraine