President Vladimir Putin of Russia has openly sanctioned the evacuation of residents from portions of southern Ukraine’s seized Kherson.
The soldiers of Kiev have steadily advanced on the key port city.
Mr. Putin stated that residents of unsafe locations should relocate because “civilians should not suffer.”
At least 70,000 people have reportedly been relocated from Kherson, the only major city Moscow has captured since its February invasion.
During the Unity Day celebration on Moscow’s Red Square, Mr. Putin stated that civilians at risk from shelling and attacks must be “removed.
Kyiv accuses Russia of forcibly expelling Ukrainian citizens, which is considered a war crime, whilst Moscow disputes these allegations.
Russia’s intensive missile and drone attacks on Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure have inflicted massive fatalities and damage, and have compelled Kyiv to implement periodic blackouts.
Mr. Putin’s remarks followed rumors on Thursday that the Russian military was also withdrawing from Kherson in a significant manner.
Kirill Stremousov, a Kremlin-appointed administrator in the region, told Russian media that Moscow was “likely” to withdraw its troops from the region.
Ukrainian officials cautioned that the rumored maneuver could be a ruse to draw their troops into perilous territory.
Soon after Russia attacked its neighbor on February 24, Kherson was taken, but Ukrainian forces progressively recovered the area on the city’s outskirts in subsequent weeks.
The first call for civilians to evacuate Kherson was made in the middle of last month when the Russian army placed the city in defensive mode.
Later, military officials reported that the city’s people had been evacuated in preparation for an anticipated fight.
Russia claims the Kherson region and three other Ukrainian regions as its territory, although not having complete sovereignty over any of them. It swiftly organized local “referendums” to support its claim, a practice that has been denounced internationally.
In 2014, Russia also annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea.
During his speech on Friday in Red Square, Mr. Putin stated that more than 300,000 military recruits had enlisted for duty, surpassing his goal of 300,000.
Mr. Putin stated that 49,000 were already engaged in actual combat.
In its most recent statement, the British Ministry of Defense stated that the newest recruits would have minimal effect on the fight because Russia would have difficulty training them.
Meanwhile, the Wagner Group, a Russian private military business, has erected its first formal headquarters in St. Petersburg.
According to reports, its fighters are involved in the Russian assault in Ukraine, and it has recruited inmates to fight there in exchange for commuting their sentences in Russia.
Soldiers from Wagner have been routinely accused of human rights breaches in Syria, Libya, and other wars.
Mr. Putin has now changed the Russian statute on calling up reservists to include those recently released from jail who were convicted of major crimes.
The measure means that newly freed convicted murderers and drug dealers could be drafted to fight in Ukraine.
Former inmates convicted of sexual offenses against children or terrorists remain ineligible for service.
In his most recent remarks on the war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky criticized the “totally insane intransigence of Russia’s current owners.”
He stated that his adversary was uninterested in peace discussions and was instead sending both mobilized troops and mercenary fighters to “the butcher grinder.”
Referring to the “bloodiest fighting” of the week, Mr. Zelensky singled out the eastern cities of Bakhmut and Soledar.
