RIGA, Latvia – Russian President Vladimir Putin imposed martial law Wednesday in Ukrainian territories that Moscow illegally claimed to annex last month, signaling an intensifying effort to achieve its war objectives. The decree opens another dark and uncertain chapter for thousands of Ukrainians living under Russian military occupation.
Martial law, which takes effect at midnight, imposes strict military controls over the occupied areas of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia and bestows broad powers of arrest and detention on Russia’s military and proxy authorities.
The martial law decree, issued with Russia losing ground in southern Ukraine, is based on the premise that Russian territory is under attack – although the four regions, like Crimea in 2014, were illegally annexed in a move overwhelmingly rejected in a United Nations vote last week.
Putin said the four regions had been under martial law before Russia claimed to have annexed and absorbed them earlier this month. “We now need to legalize this state in accordance with Russian legislation,” he said. “Therefore, I have signed a decree introducing martial law in these four regions of Russia.”
His decree follows 10 days of sustained airstrikes and drone attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure as part of a clear shift in strategy by Moscow, aiming to compensate for battlefield losses with superior long-range missile power and a vast fleet of Iranian-made attack drones.
Together, the developments confront Kyiv and its Western backers with yet another test of their resolve. NATO powers, including the United States, have promised to rush additional air defense systems to Ukraine, hoping to thwart Russia’s goal of leaving the country without electricity or heat as winter looms.
In declaring martial law, which he announced during a meeting of Russia’s security council, Putin said he would also be establishing a new coordinating committee for the areas under restriction, to be led by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.
Russia does not fully control the four regions it declared annexed, and Ukrainian forces have made substantial territorial advances in recent weeks to reclaim previously occupied territories.
The decree marks an effort by the Kremlin to provide domestic legal cover for further harsh punitive actions against Ukrainians who resist Russia’s occupation, and deter Ukrainians still loyal to Kyiv.
Russia, however, has routinely arrested, jailed, tortured and killed Ukrainians in areas it has occupied since the invasion began on Feb. 24, and it stands accused of numerous war crimes.
Putin’s announcement came as Russian proxy officials in Kherson said they had begun moving about 50,000 people out of Kherson city, after the Russian military commander in charge of the war warned that the situation in the city was difficult.
With Russian officials predicting a major Ukrainian assault on the city, Col. Gen. Sergei Surovikin, who was announced as commander of the Russian assault on Ukraine earlier this month, said he could not rule out “difficult decisions.”
“Our plans and actions regarding the city of Kherson will depend on the unfolding military-tactical situation. I would like to reiterate that it is quite difficult today,” Surovikin said in an interview on state television.
It was not clear whether the difficult decisions could entail a military retreat from the city, or a large-scale battle if Ukrainian forces attack.
Ukrainian troops have been advancing slowly in the Kherson region in recent weeks, destroying bridges and cutting supply lines, in particular pressuring Russian forces on the west bank of the Dnieper River. The Russians, while pushed back, appeared to be making a more orderly, strategic retreat than they did last month in the northeastern Kharkiv region, where they fled haphazardly, abandoning vehicles and equipment.
Russia was using ferries and buses to move people from Kherson on Wednesday, and its forces stopped civilian vehicles from entering the city. The Kherson region forms a crucial part of Putin’s much-coveted “land bridge” from mainland Russia to Crimea, the peninsula that Russia invaded and annexed illegally in 2014.
Kherson is a key strategic city for Russia – the capital of one of four territories that were illegally annexed by Putin, and its loss would be a major blow to Russia’s war aims. The city, which was the first regional capital seized in the invasion, served as a Russian logistical and political base in efforts to extend Russian control across southern Ukraine, including to the port city of Odessa. Resistance by the Ukrainian military halted those efforts.
But Ukraine’s attempts to recapture city of Kherson have been slow, and have entailed a high cost in casualties as Russia deployed its most experienced forces to the region.
Russian officials and their proxies in Ukraine warned Wednesday that Ukrainian forces could bombard or flood the city, and they sent out text messages instructing people to leave.
Throughout the war, however, Russia has repeatedly launched major attacks on cities such as Mariupol and Kharkiv, ruthlessly hitting civilian targets, destroying apartment blocks, hospitals, schools, and vital infrastructure such as electricity. Attacks on civilian infrastructure, which has no military purpose, is a war crime.
Despite the evidence in recent weeks of Russian forces surrendering, retreating or refusing to fight, Surovikin claimed that it was the Ukrainian forces marshaled to retake Kherson who had low morale.
The general claimed Russia’s strategy was to “take care of every soldier and methodically grind the advancing enemy” and to avoid civilian casualties. A Moscow proxy official in Kherson, Kirill Stremousov, said Russia would not retreat.
“We are not going to surrender the city. We will stand to the end,” Stremousov said Wednesday. He added that Russia was turning Kherson into a fortress, comments that implied a long, bitter battle for the city.
(c) 2022, The Washington Post · Robyn Dixon
