After Russia announced on Tuesday it was moving troops into eastern Ukraine as peacekeeping forces, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced introducing reservists’ conscription for a special period but ruled out a general mobilization in the country.
Zelenskiy pointed out that there is no need for general mobilization yet, but noted they need to promptly replenish the Ukrainian army and other military formations, so he issued a decree on the conscription of reservists as the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
In one of Europe’s worst security crises in decades, Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized two breakaway areas of eastern Ukraine as independent after being controlled by Russian-backed fighters since 2014.
Despite the Ukraine and Western countries’ accusations of instigating the Donbas conflict and sending troops and heavy weapons to prop up the separatists, Moscow always denied that and insisted that Kyiv holds direct talks with separatist leaders.
Stressing that Ukraine would not cede any territory to Russia, Zelenskiy said he was still pursuing diplomatic ways out of the crisis despite Moscow wrecking peace talks on ending an eight-year-old conflict in Donbas.
Announcing an economic patriotism program that includes incentivizing local production and VAT cuts on gasoline, Zelenskiy, addressing Ukraine after a cross-party meeting in parliament, renewed his call for companies to stay put and has also publicly criticized foreign embassies and Ukrainian businessmen for leaving Ukraine for security reasons.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, Ukraine’s opposition party Opposition Platform – For Life, which has 44 seats in the Verkhovna Rada, issued a statement calling on Zelensky to resign, blaming his inactivity and lack of will for the situation that is now developing around the Donbas.
The statement says that the government failed to cope with this task of national importance by not taking a single step towards the implementation of the political part of the Minsk agreements, peace, and unity and failing to reintegrate the Donbas region in Ukraine.
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