Shocking footage of the fight captured the man as he tried to push himself away from the three officers who were trying to arrest him. He was thrown against a restaurant window before officers elbowed him in the head. People in the restaurant were stunned in silence during the brutal encounter.
President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday ordered Russia’s first war mobilization since World War II, shocking citizens with what Western countries described as an act of desperation in the face of a losing war.
Putin made the announcement in a televised address, in which he also announced moves to annex parts of Ukrainian territory and threatened to defend Russia with nuclear weapons, stating “It’s not a bluff.”
Flights from Russia quickly sold out and jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny called for mass demonstrations against the mobilization. Russians said some people had already received draft notices and police were blocking men from leaving a southern town.
Independent protest monitoring group OVD-Info said more than 1,300 people had been arrested at protests as of Wednesday evening.
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In a country that counts millions of ex-conscripts on reserve duty, Putin’s “partial mobilization” decree gave no indication of who would be drafted. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said 300,000 people would be mobilized from a pool of 25 million. Contracts of professional troops would be extended indefinitely.
Putin also effectively announced plans to annex four Ukrainian provinces and said Moscow will assist and implement the results of referendums on the accession of Ukraine’s Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions to Russia.
Without evidence, Putin accused officials in NATO countries of threatening to use nuclear weapons against Russia. They should know that “the weathervane can turn to them,” he said, adding that Russia “also has various means of destruction.”
“If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will certainly use all means at our disposal to protect Russia and our people. This is not a bluff.”
President Biden, speaking to world leaders at the UN General Assembly, responded: “Again, just today, President Putin openly issued nuclear threats against Europe, in reckless disregard for the responsibilities of the non-proliferation regime.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is due to address the UN General Assembly later on Wednesday, said he believes Putin is unlikely to use nuclear weapons but that the threat itself shows why standing up to him is important.
“Tomorrow Putin can say: ‘Besides Ukraine, we also want part of Poland, otherwise we will use nuclear weapons.’ We cannot make these compromises,” said Zelenskyj of the “Bild” newspaper.
European Union foreign ministers called an emergency meeting in New York for the UN General Assembly late Wednesday to discuss new sanctions and arms deliveries to Kyiv under Putin’s order.
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“It is clear that Russia wants to destroy Ukraine,” said EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell. “We will not be intimidated.”
The call for mobilization is possibly the riskiest domestic political move in Putin’s two decades in power, and follows months of promises by the Kremlin that he would not do so.
The war so far appears to enjoy popular support in a country where all independent media has been shut down and any public criticism of the “special military operation” is banned.
But for many ordinary Russians, especially those in the urban middle class, the prospect of being sent to fight would be the first indication that the war is affecting them personally.
