TURMOIL ROCKS RUSSIA

Shocked Russians caught off guard
as men are swept up by draft gangs

Kremlin official threatens nukes for defense of seized territory
in tacit admission that Putin's Ukraine forces are failing

Big economic crunch looms over cost of war
and the drop-off in Europe energy sales

As startled Russians coped with their men suddenly being dragged from their jobs and homes to be forced to shore up the demolarized and badly battered military units remaining in Ukraine, a top Russian security official warned that Russia might use nuclear weapons to defend seized territory that it plans to formally annex within days.

Meanwhile, Russia was rocked yesterday by protests that drew the wrath of authorities and by the specter of men fleeing the nation for safer areas. The European Union was mulling over easing of passport controls in order to aid the escape of those targeted for conscription.

The security official, Dmitry Medvedev, said Thursday that any weapons in Moscow's arsenal, including strategic nuclear weapons, could be used to defend territories incorporated into Russia from Ukraine.

Medvedev, deputy security council chairman, said referendums being organized by Russian-installed and separatist authorities in large swathes of Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory will definitely take place -- that "there is no going back," and that the the Donbas republics of Donetsk and Luhansk and other territories "will be accepted into Russia."

Medvedev, an ex-president and close ally of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, said the protection of all the territories would be significantly strengthened by the Russian armed forces, adding:

"Russia has announced that not only mobilization capabilities, but also any Russian weapons, including strategic nuclear weapons and weapons based on new principles, could be used for such protection."

The referendums due to take place in the Russian-held parts of Ukraine's Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia provinces, as well as part of Mykolaiv province, from Friday are widely expected to produce results overwhelmingly endorsing joining Russia.

The plebiscites, being organized at a few days' notice under military occupation, have been labeled shams by Kyiv and its Western allies.

If formally admitted to the Russian Federation, the occupied territories, where Ukrainian counteroffensives have gathered pace in recent weeks, will under Moscow's nuclear doctrine be entitled to protection from Russian nuclear weapons.

From The Guardian:

Summons delivered to eligible men at midnight. Schoolteachers pressed into handing out draft notices. Men given an hour to pack their things and appear at draft centres. Women sobbing as they sent their husbands and sons off to fight in Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The first full day of Russia’s first mobilisation since the second world war produced emotional showdowns at draft centres and even signs of protest, while it appears Russia could be considering far more than the 300,000 new conscripts claimed by the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu.

“It’s not a partial mobilisation, it’s a 100% mobilisation,” said Alexandra Garmazhapova, president of the Free Buryatia Foundation, an activist group that has reported on the draft in the region. In the past day, she said, she and her colleagues had received and identified more than 3,000 reports of povestka, or draft papers, being delivered in Buryatia within just 24 hours of Vladimir Putin announcing the draft.

Despite assurances that Russia would be seeking men who had recently served in the army and had combat experience, activists pointed to a number of cases of men in their 50s receiving draft notices.

From The Times:

The country’s political talk shows, usually so deferential, have given the floor to more critical voices. Opponents of the war have weighed in — about 40 officials from municipal councils signed a petition requesting the president’s resignation — and previously loyal figures have begun to mutter about the regime’s failings. In a sign of general discontent, Alla Pugacheva, Russia’s most famous 20th-century pop star, has come out against the war. Six months of consensus has started to crack.

The Washington Post relates that Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov's son, Nikolai Peskov, aroused resentment over the likelihood that wealthy and politically connected figures would be spared military service.

The paper said,

Nikolai Peskov was less than enthusiastic about the idea that he could be sent to fight when he was phoned Wednesday by Dmitry Nizovtsev, a member of the team of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny and an opposition YouTube channel anchor. Nizovtsev, posing as a military official, demanded that the younger Peskov appear at a local military commissariat the following day at 10 a.m.

“Obviously I won’t come tomorrow at 10 a.m.,” the younger Peskov said. “You have to understand that I am Mr. Peskov and it’s not exactly right for me to be there. In short, I will solve this on another level.”

Holger Schmieding, chief economist at the Berenberg investment fund, points out that Putin not only faces economic problems from the need to fund the war and suppress dissent, but thatE Russia’s main bargaining chip when it comes to economic sanctions imposed by the West – its influence over the European energy market – is on the wane. CNBC News reports:

“Although Putin closed the Nord Stream 1 pipeline on 31 August, the EU continues to fill its gas storage facilities at a slightly slower but still satisfactory pace,” Schmieding noted, adding that even Germany — which was particularly exposed to Russian supplies — could get close to its 95% storage target ahead of winter.

Europe’s rapid shift away from Russian energy is particularly painful for the Kremlin: the energy sector represents around a third of Russian GDP, half of all fiscal revenues and 60% of exports, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit.

Energy revenues fell to their lowest level in over a year in August, and that was before Moscow cut off gas flows to Europe in the hope of strong-arming European leaders into lifting the sanctions. The Kremlin has since being forced to sell oil to Asia at considerable discounts.

The decline in energy exports means the country’s budget surplus has been heavily depleted.

“Russia knows that it has no leverage left in its energy war against Europe. Within two or three years, the EU will have gotten rid of its dependency on Russian gas,” the EIU’s Global Forecasting Director Agathe Demarais said.

This is a key reason why Russia has opted to cut off gas flows to Europe now, she suggested, with the Kremlin aware that this threat could carry far less weight in a few years’ time.

The EIU is projecting a Russian GDP contraction of 6.2% this year and 4.1% next year, which Demarais said was “huge, by both historical and international standards.”

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Information for this report comes from The New York Times, Reuters News Agency, The Washington Post, CNBC News and The Guardian.
More from The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/09/22/world/russia-ukraine-putin-news
More from Reuters News Agency
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-medvedev-strategic-nuclear-weapons-can-be-used-defend-new-regions-2022-09-22/

More from The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/22/russia-mobilisation-ukraine-war-army-drive
More from The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/22/mobilization-putin-anger-russia-war/ More from CNBC News
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/21/path-to-oblivion-ukraine-military-gains-could-deepen-russias-economic-woes.html