“As for the duration of the special military operation, of course, this can be a long process,” Putin said, using his preferred term for the Russian invasion, which began in February. In a televised meeting of his war-torn Human Rights Council, Putin said Russians would “defend ourselves with all the means at our disposal”, arguing that Russia is seen in the West as “a second-class country that does not has a right to exist at all.” He said the risk of a nuclear war was rising – the latest in a series of such warnings – but that Russia saw its arsenal as a means to respond, not to strike first. “We didn’t go crazy, we realize what nuclear weapons are,” Putin said. “We have these means in a more advanced and modern form than any other nuclear country… But we are not going to run around the world brandishing this weapon like a razor.” He said there was no reason for a second mobilization at this point, after at least 300,000 reservists were called up in September and October. Putin said 150,000 of them were deployed in Ukraine: 77,000 in combat units and the rest in defense functions. The remaining 150,000 were still in training centers. “Under these circumstances, the discussion of any additional mobilization measures simply does not make sense,” he said. Putin has rarely discussed the likely length of the war, although he boasted in July that Russia was just getting started. Since then, Russia has been forced into major concessions, but Putin has said he has no regrets about starting a war that is Europe’s most destructive since World War II.
COURT CASES
Putin said Russia had already achieved a “significant result” by gaining “new territories” in Ukraine – a reference to the annexation of four partially occupied territories in September that Kyiv and most members of the United Nations condemned as illegal. He said Russia had made the Sea of Azov – bordered by Russia and Russian-occupied territories – its “internal sea”. He said this was an aspiration of Peter the Great – the 17th and 18th century warrior tsar to whom Putin has compared himself in the past. Putin meets annually with his Human Rights Council, a body critics say has enabled him to uphold civil liberties while increasing repression and stifling dissent. He expressed anger that the West was turning a blind eye to what he said was direct Ukrainian shelling of populated areas in the Russian-held Donbass region of eastern Ukraine. Ukraine suffered heavy civilian casualties throughout the war, although Russia denies targeting civilians. The United Nations human rights office said on Wednesday that Russian forces killed at least 441 civilians in the first days of their invasion, documenting attacks on dozens of towns and summary executions that it said could amount to war crimes. Moscow did not immediately respond. While the meeting was underway, news emerged that former defense journalist Ivan Safronov had failed in an appeal against his 22-year prison sentence for treason. He was accused of divulging state secrets about defense contracts, although he maintained that all the material was available from open sources. Ilya Yashin, an opposition councilor in Moscow who spoke out against the war, is awaiting sentencing this week under a law passed after the invasion that criminalizes the spread of “false information” about the armed forces. The prosecution is asking for nine years in prison. Putin last month removed 10 members of the council and brought in four new ones, including Alexander Koch, a pro-war blogger and correspondent for the mass-circulation newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda. Several of the expelled members had said they planned to use the meeting with Putin to raise issues such as anti-dissent laws and the listing of Kremlin critics as “foreign agents”. Reporting by Reuters, writing by Mark Trevelyan. Editor: Kevin Liffey Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. Mark Trevelyan Thomson Reuters Lead writer for Russia and the CIS. He has worked as a journalist on 7 continents and reported from 40+ countries, with posts in London, Wellington, Brussels, Warsaw, Moscow and Berlin. Covered the breakup of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. Security correspondent from 2003 to 2008. Speaks French, Russian and (rusty) German and Polish.
