WW3 fears as Putin launches biggest Russian military call-up in several years
The Russian wartime leader has forged forward with a recruitment drive as peace talks flounder with Washington and Kyiv.
Vladimir Putin is once again stoking fears of World War III as the Kremlin launches a massive call-up drive for 160,000 more soldiers - a figure which is more than double the size of the entire regular British Army. The Russian strongman has ordered the mobilisation of men aged 18-30 in the biggest conscription drive since 2011, with an aim to further increase the size of the country's huge military which has almost 1.5 million active servicemen.
In stark contrast, Britain's fighting force has just 75,325 regular soldiers, excluding Gurkhas and volunteers. Overall the Russian numbers are even more staggering, with a total military swelling to almost 2.39 million people from a population of over 143 million.
The BBC reports Vice Adm Vladimir Tsimlyansky denied new conscripts would not be sent to fight in Ukraine for what Russia calls its "special military operation".
However, it's been widely reported that conscripts have been killed in Russia's border regions during battles with Ukrainian forces, and that many died in the early months of the illegal invasion into Ukraine.
The draft of more men into the military is another smack in the face for Donald Trump who has struggled to secure a deal between Russia and Ukraine to end the three-year bloody conflict.
Despite declaring an energy infrastucture ceasefire and a shipping ceasefire in the Black Sea, President Trump and the White House have been left frustrated as Moscow continues to launch attacks on the ground and in the air against Ukraine.
In a fresh statement the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergei Ryabkov, said the Kremlin had looked seriously at the proposals coming from Washington that would bring the war in Ukraine to an end.
But the plan, he claimed, didn't take into account the "root causes" of the war.
Dashing hopes for peace once again, the official said: "We take the models and solutions proposed by the Americans very seriously, but we can't accept it all in its current form."
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President Trump promised during last year’s US election campaign that he would bring Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II to a swift conclusion.
The Kremlin has not directly addressed Mr Trump’s most recent criticism of President Putin when he said on Sunday he was “angry, pissed off” that the Russian leader had questioned Ukraine President Zelensky’s credibility as leader.
Moscow spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said President Putin “remains absolutely open to contacts” with the US president and was ready to speak to him.
Both Russia and Ukraine are preparing for a spring-summer campaign on the battlefield, analysts and Ukrainian and Western officials say.
President Zelensky said on Sunday that there has been no letup in Russia’s attacks as it drives on with its invasion of its neighbour that began in February 2022. He said the attacks demonstrated Russia’s unwillingness to forge a settlement.
He said “The geography and brutality of Russian strikes, not just occasionally, but literally every day and night, show that Putin couldn’t care less about diplomacy.
“And almost every day, in response to this proposal, there are Russian drones, bombs, artillery shelling, and ballistic strikes."
