Putin Says Draft Vital to Hold Ukraine Front Line but Will End Soon

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a news conference following the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) leaders' summit in Astana, Kazakhstan October 14, 2022. (Reuters)
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a news conference following the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) leaders' summit in Astana, Kazakhstan October 14, 2022. (Reuters)
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Putin Says Draft Vital to Hold Ukraine Front Line but Will End Soon

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a news conference following the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) leaders' summit in Astana, Kazakhstan October 14, 2022. (Reuters)
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a news conference following the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) leaders' summit in Astana, Kazakhstan October 14, 2022. (Reuters)

President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Russia's call-up of reserve forces to fight in Ukraine, criticized as chaotic by some Kremlin allies, had been vital to hold the front line but would be wound up in the next couple of weeks.

Russia has conducted a broad mobilization of Russians to reinforce its long front after Ukraine won back territory in recent weeks. Moscow has also threatened to use nuclear weapons to defend territory including four regions of Ukraine it annexed late last month but does not fully control.

"The line of contact is 1,100 km (680 miles), so it is practically impossible to hold it with forces formed only of contract soldiers, especially since they take part in offensive activities," Putin told a news conference at the end of a summit in Kazakhstan, adding that those mobilized were being properly trained.

Putin said there were no plans for new massive strikes on Ukraine "for now" after what Ukraine said was the firing of 100 Russian cruise missiles this week, mainly at its electricity and heat infrastructure.

It was Russia's biggest air assault yet in a nearly eight-month conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people.

"We do not set ourselves the task of destroying Ukraine. No, of course not," Putin said, describing the war he started on Feb. 24 as unpleasant but saying he had no regrets.

Putin's comments will add to speculation that Russia's supply of cruise missiles is dwindling.

Over the next two weeks, he said, Russia would wind up the mobilization, which has been criticized by some of the Kremlin's hardline nationalist allies and led thousands of Russians to flee to neighboring countries to avoid service.

Most of the 300,000 people due to be called up had been, Putin added.

He also repeated the Kremlin position that Russia was willing to hold talks to end what it calls a special military operation, although he said talks would require international mediation if Ukraine was willing to take part.

Taken together, Putin's comments appeared to suggest a slight softening of his tone as the war nears the end of its eighth month, after weeks of Ukrainian advances and significant Russian defeats.

Belarus alert

Ukraine launched a counteroffensive in late August against Russian forces occupying the country since the start of their invasion in February, pushing them out of a large part of the northeast and putting them under heavy pressure in the south.

Moscow's close ally Belarus ordered troops to deploy with Russian forces near Ukraine this week, prompting concern it may send its forces across the border for the first time.

On Friday President Alexander Lukashenko placed Belarus in what he called a state of heightened terrorism alert due to tension on its borders. Ukraine has denied attacking Belarus.

Kyiv's main focus now is Kherson - one of four partially occupied Ukrainian provinces that Russia claims to have annexed in recent weeks, and arguably the most strategically important.

Russia's TASS news agency said evacuees from the Kherson region were expected to begin arriving in Russia on Friday, a day after a Russian-installed official suggested people could flee to Russia, especially those around Kherson city.

While some people in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine have fled to Russia as Ukrainian forces advance, others have reported being forced towards Russia and others still have fled westward to Ukrainian-controlled parts of their country.

Strategic target

A flight of civilians from Kherson would be a blow to Russia's claim last month to have annexed around 15% of Ukraine's territory and incorporated an area the size of Portugal into Russia. Three quarters of UN members condemned the move as illegal on Wednesday.

Kherson city, the only major conurbation Russia has captured intact since invading in February, controls the only land route to the Crimea peninsula seized by Russia in 2014 and the mouth of the Dnipro river that bisects Ukraine.

Since the start of October, Ukrainian forces have burst through Russia's front lines in the region in their biggest advance in the south since the war began, aiming to cut Russian troops off from supply lines and escape routes across the river.

Ukraine said earlier on Friday that its armed forces had retaken 600 settlements in the past month, including 75 in the Kherson region and 43 in the eastern Donetsk region.

Reuters was not immediately able to confirm the battlefield reports.

Kherson lies next to the Zaporizhzhia region, also claimed by Russia, where Europe's biggest nuclear power plant is based.

A Russian-installed official said the plant was now working according to Russian standards. It was not clear if Ukrainian workers, who had continued operating the plant under the eye of Russian troops, were still there.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency tweeted separately that Russia and Ukraine were moving closer to agreeing a protection zone for the plant, where he said the situation was "untenable".

Moscow says the conflict, which has left cities, towns and villages in ruins, aims to demilitarize a country whose moves towards the West threaten Russia's own security. Kyiv and its Western allies say it is an unprovoked war of conquest.

A British intelligence update said forces led by the private Russian military company Wagner Group had captured two villages south of the fiercely-contested eastern town of Bakhmut over the past three days, their only such seizures in months.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy reported ongoing "brutal" fighting there in a video address late on Thursday.



UN-backed Team Focusing on Human Rights in Palestinian Areas Announce Resignations

Chair of the Commission Navi Pillay delivers her statement of the report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, during the 56th session of the Human Rights Council, at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Wednesday, June 19, 2024. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP, File)
Chair of the Commission Navi Pillay delivers her statement of the report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, during the 56th session of the Human Rights Council, at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Wednesday, June 19, 2024. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP, File)
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UN-backed Team Focusing on Human Rights in Palestinian Areas Announce Resignations

Chair of the Commission Navi Pillay delivers her statement of the report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, during the 56th session of the Human Rights Council, at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Wednesday, June 19, 2024. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP, File)
Chair of the Commission Navi Pillay delivers her statement of the report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, during the 56th session of the Human Rights Council, at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Wednesday, June 19, 2024. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP, File)

A team of three independent experts working for the UN's top human rights body with a focus on Israel and Palestinian areas say they are resigning, citing personal reasons and a need for change, in the panel's first such group resignation.

The resignations, announced Monday by the UN-backed Human Rights Council that set up the team, come as violence continues in Palestinian areas with few signs of letup in the Israeli military campaign against Hamas and other militants behind the Oct. 7 attacks.

The Israeli government has repeatedly criticized the panel of experts, known as the Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel, and denied their repeated requests to travel to the region or otherwise cooperate with the team, The AP news reported.

Council spokesman Pascal Sim said the move marked the first joint resignations of Commission of Inquiry members since the council was founded in 2006. The team said in a statement that the resignations had “absolutely nothing to do with any external event or pressure," while also saying they provided a good opportunity to reconstitute the panel.

Navi Pillay, 83, a former UN human rights chief who has led the commission for the last four years, said in a letter to the council president that she was resigning effective Nov. 3 because of “age, medical issues and the weight of several other commitments.”

In an interview, Pillay rejected accusations from critics who accused her of antisemitism or turning a blind eye to the Hamas attacks. She recalled how she worked closely with some Jewish lawyers in the fight against apartheid in her native South Africa and was invited to Israel as the UN rights chief from 2008 to 2014.

"Name-calling is not affecting me in any way,” she said by phone. “We have striven to remain independent. That’s what we are. We’re an independent panel. We don’t take sides ... We look at the evidence and see the direction it’s taking us.”

“People who accuse us of being anti-Semitic ... they twist the facts, they invent facts, falsify facts. I would like to see them challenge the report: Which of the facts that we have set out are incorrect?” she said.

Her commission condemned the Oct. 7 attacks three days afterward in a news release that said at the time that reports "that armed groups from Gaza have gunned down hundreds of unarmed civilians are abhorrent and cannot be tolerated. Taking civilian hostages and using civilians as human shields are war crimes.”

She expressed regret that Israel didn't allow the commission access to Israel or Palestinian areas, saying "I feel that’s an injustice to Israeli Jews because we’re not taking on board their opinion or what they’re saying.”

Pillay said she had been recently diagnosed with low platelet count and her condition has restricted her ability to travel.

Her team said it wanted to give the rights council's president — currently Ambassador Jürg Lauber of Switzerland — the ability to pick new members.

Team member Chris Sidoti said Pillay's retirement marked “an appropriate time to re-constitute the commission.” The third member, Miloon Kothari, did not provide his reasons in a letter announcing his resignation effective 0ct. 31.

Neither the independent experts nor the council have any power over countries, but aim to spotlight rights abuses and collect information about suspected perpetrators that could be used by the International Criminal Court or other courts focusing on international justice.

The letters were sent to the council president last week but only became public Monday.

Last week, the US government announced sanctions against another independent expert mandated by the council, Francesca Albanese, who has also focused on Israel and the Palestinians. Albanese has accused Israel of genocide against the Palestinians, a claim Israel has denied.

Albanese said in an interview last week with The Associated Press that she was shocked by the US decision. She has not resigned.