Russian President Vladimir Putin said martial law will be introduced in four regions of eastern and southern Ukraine.
Martial law was declared on Wednesday in the four regions, all illegally annexed by Russia after sham referendums last month. The order also gave all regional governors in Russia emergency powers that open the door for sweeping new restrictions throughout the country, according to the Associated Press.
“I signed a decree on the introduction of martial law in these four constituent entities of the Russian Federation,” Mr. Putin said at the start of a meeting of his Security Council via videoconference, referring to the four Ukrainian regions that the Kremlin unilaterally declared to be part of Russia. “In addition, in the current situation, I consider it necessary to give additional powers to the leaders of all Russian regions.”
The move also signals an intensifying effort to achieve his military objectives amid continuing airstrikes on infrastructure targets. Military officials will take direct responsibility for civilian government functions in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions, Putin said at a meeting of his security council.
This will allow pro-Russian authorities to impose even tighter restrictions on the four regions they do not have under their control, reports the New York Times, including forced relocations, as Moscow fights to hold off Ukraine’s military advances.
The four regions can also impose curfews, seize property, imprison undocumented immigrants, establish checkpoints and detain people for up to 30 days. More importantly, Putin has ordered the formation of territorial defense forces, a type of civilian militia, in the four annexed regions, raising the possibility that Moscow’s forces may try to conscript Ukrainians into fighting their own forces.
Russia has suffered weeks of setbacks on the battlefield, and its proxies in the southern region of Kherson have begun relocating civilians in apparent anticipation of a major fight for the regional capital.
Analysts are saying that this is the first time since World War II that Russia has declared Martial Law – remarkable because Putin insists on calling the invasion of a sovereign country – Ukraine – a “special military operation” rather than a war.
\
