TORONTO (Reuters) – Russia’s partial movement of reserves to continue fighting in Ukraine is a “political game changer”, experts say It shows the view that it will not lead to offensive.
Carl Scott, a former Royal Air Force pilot and British defense ambassador to Russia until 2016, said at an online event hosted by the University of Toronto’s Munch Institute for International Affairs and Public Policy on Wednesday that potential mobilization personnel could be recruited. “It’s just 300,000 extra ‘hostages’ and not an army.” Yuri Zhukov, an associate professor of politics at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, said such personnel “will be put in the front line only to maintain the front line.” I don’t think so,” he said.
“It’s easy to think that they’re not professionally trained soldiers, so they can’t be a threat,” said Scott. Referring to the “referendum” on Russian annexation held in the controlled areas, he said, “If the Ukrainian army is forced to kill many Russian soldiers (in this area), it will (regional conflict) to developing into an all-out war,” he said, showing a sense of crisis.
“We have received reports that Russia is mobilizing Ukrainians as soldiers in some areas of Zaporozhye and Kherson, which Russia has captured,” Zhukov said, adding that the soldiers would be used for Russian propaganda. “It may well be propaganda that Ukrainians released by Russia are now fighting as soldiers in the Russian army, or that the ‘Nazi’ Ukrainian government is shooting its own people,” he said.
