EU foreign policy chief says Putin’s partial mobilisation shows panic and desperation; Zelenskiy calls on UN to adopt five-point formula
Ukraine has announced that 215 Ukrainian and foreign citizens have been released by Russia in a prisoner exchange, including fighters who led the defence of Mariupol’s Azovstal steelworks that became an icon of Ukrainian resistance.
Russia received 55 prisoners including Viktor Medvedchuk, a former Ukrainian lawmaker and ally of Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, accused of high treason, the Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said in his daily address.
It was inevitable, after Russia’s sudden military reverse near Kharkiv, that Vladimir Putin would respond, announcing a partial mobilisation of extra troops and a fresh bout of sabre-rattling on nuclear weapons a day after announcing plans to hold high-speed annexation referendums in occupied areas of Ukraine.
The timing, on the morning of Joe Biden’s speech to the UN general assembly aimed at rallying support for Ukraine, demonstrates that, to some extent, Putin’s announcements are about news management – to seize the agenda with tenuous claims that Russia is threatened by Nato “nuclear blackmail”.
