Russian President
Vladimir Putin announced the latest escalation of his war in Ukraine on
Wednesday, declaring martial law in occupied areas of Ukraine and wartime
measures throughout much of Russia.
Ukrainian officials said the order would not deter
their efforts to retake occupied territory, but warned it could mean mass
deportations of Ukrainians out of the occupied regions, and harsher treatment
for those that remain.
Experts said the order could also be a “back door”
to pull more of Russian society into the war effort, strengthening Putin’s
footing for future offensives but weakening his claim that the “special
military operation” in Ukraine is not a full-fledged war.
“This is a big deal because in effect what Putin is
doing is actually bringing all the Russian Federation into some level of
martial law,” said Mark Galeotti, an honorary professor at the University
College London’s School of Slavonic & East European Studies.
“In terms of sort of shifting to a sort of model of
national mobilization of every aspect of politics, society and economics, you
know, this is definitely a move that up to now Putin has been trying to avoid.”
While the martial law order mainly applies to the
four occupied regions of Ukraine — Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, and
Kherson — it also announced the
“economic mobilization” of eight Russian regions on Ukraine’s border, including
occupied Crimea.
And the final section says “other measures may be
applied in the Russian Federation during the period of martial law.”
What
it means for Ukraine
Ukrainian President Zolodymyr Zelensky’s office was
quick to minimize the significance of Putin’s order.
“‘Martial law’ implementation on the occupied
territories by [Russia] should be considered only as a pseudo-legalization of
looting of Ukrainians’ property by another ‘regrouping,’” Mykhailo Podolyak, a
Zelensky advisor, wrote on Twitter.
“This does not change anything for Ukraine: we
continue the liberation and de-occupation of our territories.”
However, local Ukrainian officials warned that it
could begin an even darker chapter in territories that Moscow illegally annexed
earlier this month.
“A new manifestation of genocide in the occupied
territories,” Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov wrote on Telegram. “The Russians are
preparing the forcible deportation of an entire city. So far, it is between
voluntary and forcible, supposedly aimed to protect people from hostilities.”
Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National
Security and Defense Council, wrote that “Putin’s martial law in the annexed
regions of [Ukraine] is preparation for the mass deportation of the Ukrainian
population to depressed areas of [Russia] in order to change the ethnic
composition of the occupied territory.”
Eugene Finkel, an associate professor at Johns
Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, who was born in Ukraine, said
he didn’t expect the order would significantly change the situation on the
ground.
“I don’t think that having a martial law in place
was the only thing that prevented Russians from carrying out those things, it certainly
will give them some veneer of domestic legitimacy — obviously zero external
legitimacy,” he said.
Russia has already been accused of overseeing
filtration camps in occupied areas, in which thousands of Ukrainians are sent
to Russia, while its troops have reportedly committed an array of war crimes,
from rape to torture, and mass executions.
In announcing the new order on Wednesday, Putin told
Russia’s Security Council that officials in the annexed regions should enact
measures necessary to ensure the safety of the people, protect critical
infrastructure, maintain public order and “increase the manufacturing of
products necessary for the special military operation.”
He also noted that Ukraine had already declared its
own martial law in the occupied regions following Russia’s invasion, and he
said extraordinary measures were necessary to counter Ukrainian aggression.
“The neo-Nazis are using plainly terrorist methods,
plotting sabotage at critical infrastructure, attempting to murder members of
local authorities,” he said, referring to Ukraine’s government, per the
Kremlin.
What
it means for Russia
Putin’s order is his latest move to signal action in
Ukraine as Russia’s military has faced a string of embarrassing losses in the
northeast, and may soon lose its hold on Kherson in the south.
His mobilization drive in recent weeks has stirred
up significant domestic discontent, as war hawks have spoken out against the
failures of Putin’s generals and urged for more aggressive action to regain
momentum.
While his martial law declaration was focused
largely on Ukraine and border regions in Russia, Finkel said the final
provision allowing for “other measures” could be a “backdoor to introduce
martial law in other parts of Russia without actually calling it martial law.”
“And also a signal to the population that they’re
doing something and something’s happening, because everybody knows that the war
isn’t going as they planned,” he added.
Galeotti said this could have broad implications for
Russian society, allowing officials to control industrial activity to help the
war, further control the media, or crush labor actions that conflict with
wartime priorities.
“I think in terms of what this shows is a growing
awareness that Russia is in this probably for the long haul,” he said.
Putin conveyed a similar message during his meeting with the Security Council on Wednesday, in which he also ordered the creation of a
special coordinating council to carry out the measures.
“We are working on solving very complex, large-scale
tasks to ensure a reliable future for Russia, the future of our people,” he
said.