Russia seeks tighter grip on area
Bill passes to bolster recruitment for army
KYIV, Ukraine — Russian President Vladimir Putin issued an order Wednesday to fast track Russian citizenship for residents in parts of southern Ukraine largely held by his forces, while lawmakers in Moscow passed a bill to strengthen the stretched Russian army.
Putin’s decree applying to the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions could allow Russia to strengthen its hold on territory that lies between eastern Ukraine, where Moscow-backed separatists occupy some areas, and the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia seized in 2014.
The Russian army is engaged in an intense battle for Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland, known as the Donbas. In a sign that the Kremlin is trying to bolster its stretched military machine, Russian lawmakers agreed to scrap the age limit of 40 for individuals signing their first voluntary military contracts.
A description of the bill on the parliament website indicated older recruits would be allowed to operate precision weapons or serve in engineering or medical roles. The chair of the Russian parliament’s defense committee, Andrei Kartapolov, said the measure would make it easier to hire people with “in-demand” skills.
Russian authorities say only volunteer contract soldiers are sent to fight in Ukraine, although they have said that some conscripts were put into the fighting by mistake in the early stages of the war.
Putin visits hospital
Three months into Russia’s invasion of the neighboring country, Putin visited a military hospital in Moscow and met with some soldiers wounded in Ukraine, the Kremlin said in a statement.
Wednesday’s event was the Russian leader’s first publicly known visit with soldiers fighting in Ukraine since he launched the war on Feb. 24.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reiterated Wednesday that he would be willing to negotiate with Putin directly but said Moscow needs to retreat to the positions it held before the invasion and must show it’s ready to “shift from the bloody war to diplomacy.”
“I believe it would be a correct step for Russia to make,” Zelenskyy told leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, by video link.
He also said that Ukraine wants to drive Russian troops out of all captured areas. “Ukraine will fight until it reclaims all its territories,” Zelenskyy said. “It’s about our independence and our sovereignty.”
Russia already had a program to expedite the naturalization of people living in Luhansk and Donetsk, the two eastern Ukraine provinces that make up the Donbas and where the Moscow-backed separatists hold large areas as self-declared independent republics.
During a visit to the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions last week, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin indicated they could become part of “our Russian family.”
A Russia-installed official in the Kherson region has predicted the region would become part of Russia. An official in Zaporizhzhia said Wednesday that the region’s pro-kremlin administration would seek that too.
Melitopol, Zaporizhzhia’s second-largest city, plans to start issuing Russian passports in the near future, said the Russian-installed acting mayor, Galina Danilchenko.
Vow to regain captured territory
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said Ukraine was not ready to cede control of areas occupied by Russian forces for the sake of reaching a peace agreement, saying some Western lobbyists are pushing Kyiv to do so.
“Ukrainian society has paid a terrible price and will not allow anyone to take even a step in this direction,” Podolyak said on Telegram. He said ceding territory would only freeze the conflict, not resolve it.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who attended the Davos forum in person, called for friendly countries — particularly the United States — to provide Ukraine with multiple launch rocket systems so it could try to recapture lost territory.
“Every day of someone sitting in Washington, Berlin, Paris and other capitals, and considering whether they should or should not do something, costs us lives and territories,” Kuleba said.