Putin declares martial law in four illegally annexed regions of Ukraine
The Washington Post
2022/10/19
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People walk past a house Wednesday where a couple was killed in a Russian drone strike two days before, in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday declared martial law across four regions of eastern and southern Ukraine. The move came even as his forces were losing ground in those same territories, which Moscow illegally annexed following staged referendums last month.
He made the announcement at a meeting of his security council, saying that military officials would take direct responsibility for civilian government functions in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions at midnight on Thursday.
The decree gives Russia’s military and proxy authorities broad powers of arrest and detention — but it was unclear how it would change Russia’s fortunes on the battlefield. In recent weeks, Moscow has ramped up strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, causing sweeping blackouts as winter approaches.
Here’s what to know
- The fight for Kherson could begin in the “very near future,” a pro-Russian separatist official said. Residents were ordered to leave Wednesday morning in anticipation of a major Ukrainian push to retake the city; at least 50,000 inhabitants will be transported out in an operation that pro-Moscow authorities say will take about a week.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with advisers about the country’s energy system as Russian attacks cause “massive blackouts.” Zelensky said Tuesday that 30 percent of the country’s power stations have been damaged by Russian attacks since Oct. 10, amid mounting fears of power outages in the winter.
- The United States, Britain and France will raise the issue of Iran transferring weapons to Russia at a closed-door meeting of the U.N. Security Council, according to diplomats familiar with the situation. The United States and European nations have denounced Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities and critical infrastructure using Iranian drones.
6:01 PM: Ukraine set to impose electricity supply restrictions Thursday
© Emilio Morenatti/AP
Street musicians play their instruments in a square without electric lights in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Oct. 18.
Electricity supply restrictions will be imposed across Ukraine starting Thursday, because “the enemy again destroyed energy generating facilities,” said Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Ukrainian president’s office.
For all residents of all regions in Ukraine, it will be “necessary to minimize the use of electricity” from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., Tymoshenko wrote on Telegram. He said street lighting will also be limited in cities. “Please take this seriously.”
If the “forced steps” are not followed, then Ukrainians “should prepare for temporary shutdowns,” he added.
The move comes the same day Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky held a high-level meeting with national and local officials about energy supply security.
Over the last two weeks, Russian forces have targeted critical energy facilities across the country — including power plants and substations — with drones, damaging the electrical grid. That has caused power outages and worries about the upcoming heating season. Rebuilding that crucial infrastructure could take months, Ukrainian officials have warned.
By: Sammy Westfall
5:17 PM: Analysis: The uncomfortable need to talk about diplomacy with Russia
Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a Security Council meeting via video conference at the Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow on Oct. 19. (Sergei Ilyin/Sputnik/Kremlin/AP)
Whatever his preposterousness and historical ignorance, Elon Musk touched on a genuine problem. The tech billionaire drew flak this month for tweeting his vision of a peace plan between Russia and Ukraine that appeared to favor the Kremlin’s agenda.
He called for a resolution to the ongoing war that, among other things, would see Ukraine cede its claims to Crimea. The rationale for this, Musk argued, was that Russia would sooner deploy tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield than countenance the loss of the strategic and culturally symbolic peninsula. Concessions to the invading power would be preferable to falling into a spiraling nuclear conflict.
The backlash was scathing — with policy experts and Ukrainian and Western officials scoffing at the logic of nuclear blackmail imposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and parroted by Musk.
“There can’t be a compromise based on him not setting off a nuclear weapon if we hand over Ukraine,” Fiona Hill, a Russia scholar and former Trump administration official, told Politico. “Putin is behaving like a rogue state because, well, he is a rogue state at this point. … We have to ensure that he’s not going to have the effect that he wants with this nuclear brinkmanship.”
How to do that is, of course, the giant conundrum surrounding the war in Ukraine.
By: Ishaan Tharoor
4:09 PM: U.S., Ukraine create joint task force for reconstruction
© Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images
Ukrainian workers repair a road near the town of Izyum, which was liberated from Russian occupation last month, on Oct. 18.
The United States and Ukraine are forming a joint task force to address Kyiv’s wartime infrastructure needs and prioritize plans for reconstruction once the fighting ends, the Department of Commerce said Wednesday.
The U.S.-Ukraine Infrastructure Task Force will bring together the U.S. Departments of Commerce and Transportation, as well as Ukraine’s Ministry of Infrastructure, to “start and sustain Ukraine’s reconstruction process,” according to a joint statement.
The task force will focus on both short-term and long-term needs to provide services and support Ukraine’s economy, with an emphasis on rebuilding the country’s energy resources, the statement said.
It will also include efforts to “facilitate U.S. private sector involvement” and “implement the best of American and Ukrainian innovation.”
Russia’s invasion has devastated the country’s infrastructure, including in the past week, when Russian forces launched missile and drone strikes on power plants and other energy facilities.
“Infrastructure reconstruction will be an essential pillar of Ukraine’s prosperity and national security,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said.
By: Erin Cunningham
3:44 PM: Zelensky holds high-level energy security meeting
Firefighters work to put out a fire at a Ukrainian energy facility in Zhytomyr on Tuesday. (State Emergency Service of Ukraine/Reuters)
Ukrainian officials held a high-level strategic meeting on energy supply security Wednesday at which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and national and local leaders talked through measures to “eliminate the consequences if the energy system of Ukraine were disabled,” according to a presidential statement.
Zelensky had said the day before that about a third of Ukraine’s power stations had been destroyed by Russian forces since Oct. 10.
Attending the meeting with Zelensky were Ukraine’s prime minister, energy minister, internal affairs minister, community and territorial development minister, and members of the State Emergency Services, energy company representatives and local government officials, according to the statement.
The group discussed “urgent issues” related to security at critical energy facilities. They talked through scenarios and models of community support, given “various degrees of danger,” as well as steps to ensure heating through the cold season. They also decided on measures to take when areas are left without electricity — including cooperating with international partners for necessary equipment.
Kyiv is also working on creating “mobile power points” in Ukrainian cities, towns and villages, Zelensky said on Telegram.
By: Sammy Westfall
3:16 PM: Analysis from Mary Ilyushina
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s martial law announcement doesn’t change much on the ground in Ukraine, but for Russia it could mean a great deal: The decrees introduce various levels of restrictions in nearly a third of the country.
The restrictions could easily be expanded if the situation worsens.
2:55 PM: Biden warns Putin may ‘brutalize’ the people of Ukraine
President Biden deliver remarks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Wednesday. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
President Biden said Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s faltering military invasion of Ukraine is putting the Russian leader in an “incredibly difficult position” that may lead him to seek victory by further targeting civilians there.
“What it reflects to me, is it seems his only tool, available to him, is to brutalize individual citizens in Ukraine, Ukrainian citizens, to try to intimidate them into capitulating,” Biden told reporters at White House.
Referring to the people of Ukraine, Biden added: “They’re not going to do that.”
The comments are Biden’s latest rebuke of Putin. In March, Biden called Putin “a war criminal,” and in September he said the Russian president made “irresponsible” nuclear threats. Earlier this month, Biden said Putin “totally miscalculated” the invasion of Ukraine.
In September, Putin illegally annexed four regions of Ukraine he wanted to unite with Russia. On Wednesday, he put those four regions under martial law. Residents in those areas — Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia — have already been living under military occupation for months. The new declaration of martial law there by Putin creates some legal cover, at least under Russian national law, for an array of potential abuses by military authorities and their proxies.
By: Azi Paybarah
2:26 PM: Zelensky continues ‘friendly’ dialogue with Turkey’s Erdogan
© Burhan Ozbilici/AP
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan salutes supporters at an inauguration ceremony of new government buildings in Ankara, Turkey, on Oct. 19.
Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky said he continued a “friendly” dialogue with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday. Zelensky thanked Erdogan for “the unshakable support of the territorial integrity, sovereignty” of Ukraine, he wrote on Twitter.
Interaction between Turkey and Ukraine in the “security sphere” is “highly appreciated,” Zelensky added.
Erdogan stressed the need “to keep the vision for a diplomatic solution alive under all circumstances,” according to a Turkish Directorate of Communications statement. He added that Turkey “stands ready to provide every kind of support to end the war through negotiations.”
Erdogan told members of his party Wednesday that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to move forward in turning Turkey into a “gas hub” for Europe, Reuters reported. The Turkish and Russian leaders had met last week in Kazakhstan, where the Russian leader floated the idea of creating a natural gas distribution center in Turkey.
By: Sammy Westfall
1:53 PM: Analysis from Louisa Loveluck, Baghdad Bureau Chief
As a Ukrainian counteroffensive edges through the eastern provinces in which Russian President Vladimir Putin declared martial law Wednesday, Russian forces are still pounding one city, Bakhmut, as Ukrainian forces cling on there. At least three rockets whizzed past us and smashed into the Bakhmutka River’s eastern bank, where dozens of civilians have been wounded in recent weeks.
1:05 PM: Martial law is ‘preparation for the mass deportation’ of Ukrainians, official warns
© Serhiy Morgunov/For The Washington Post
Oleksiy Danilov, head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense council.
The head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense council warned Wednesday that President Vladimir Putin’s imposition of martial law was “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.”
It is “a crime that should be condemned by the [United Nations] and that was already committed by Russia in Crimea and remained unpunished,” said Oleksiy Danilov on Twitter.
Danilov was referring to the Crimean peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014 and sought to repopulate with Russian citizens. Since launching its full-scale invasion in 2022, Russia has also forced Ukrainians from their homes in Russian-occupied areas and offered enticements for its citizens to move in.
“Unlike combatants who, once captured, are held as prisoners of war and may be moved to enemy territory, the forcible transfer of civilians is prohibited under international humanitarian law, or the laws of war, and can be prosecuted as a war crime and a crime against humanity,” New York-based Human Rights Watch wrote in a September report on Russia’s forced transfer of civilians in occupied regions of Ukraine.
By: Miriam Berger
12:27 PM: Map of territorial control in Ukraine
© Provided by The Washington Post
This map depicts the territorial situation in Ukraine, nine months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of the country.
Since early September, Ukraine has made significant recovery of territory along two fronts — the northern front in areas east of Kharkiv, which lies just some 30 miles from the Russian border, and in the south along the northern banks of the Dnieper River toward the city of Kherson.
Later in September, Russia staged referendums as a basis for annexing occupied parts of Ukraine. Kyiv, the United Nations and Western allies roundly rejected the referendums as illegitimate.
In the war’s first weeks, Russia appeared close to taking the capital, Kyiv. But six weeks into the fighting, Russia’s bogged-down forces retreated from around the capital and refocused on capturing territory in southern and eastern Ukraine. This was the continuation of a fight started in 2014, when Russia illegally annexed Crimea in southern Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists took territory in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the east of the country.
By: Laris Karklis and Miriam Berger
11:35 AM: E.U. to sanction Iran for supplying Russia with drones to attack Ukraine
© Stringer/Reuters
A Russian drone is seen during a Russian drone strike, which local authorities consider to be Iranian made unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) Shahed-136, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Sunday.
BRUSSELS — The European Union is preparing to sanction Iran for supplying Russia with drones used to strike targets in Ukraine, according to two E.U. diplomats, in yet another sign of deteriorating ties between Brussels and Tehran.
E.U. officials are working up a list of individuals and entities with an eye to reaching an agreement quickly, possibly as early as Wednesday. The new penalties would come less than a week after the bloc sanctioned Iran’s “morality police” and information minister over the recent crackdown on protesters.
With attacks ongoing, there is broad support for the sanctions, the diplomats said, despite some fear that taking a tough stand could push Tehran closer to Moscow or further diminish hopes of resurrecting the Iran nuclear deal. Iran has denied it is supplying Russia with drones for use in Ukraine.
Closer ties between Russia and Iran, two economically and politically isolated authoritarian countries at odds with the West, could have profound implications for the United States and its allies.
By: Emily Rauhala
10:43 AM: Zelensky adviser: ‘This does not change anything for Ukraine’
Mykhailo Podolyak, a political adviser to Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Oct. 6, 2022. (Anna Voitenko/Reuters)
Russia’s decision to introduce martial law across four regions of eastern and southern Ukraine “does not change anything,” an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday in response to the Kremlin’s announcement.
“ ‘Martial law’ implementation on the occupied territories by [Russian forces] should be considered only as a pseudo-legalization of looting of Ukrainians’ property by another ‘regrouping,’ ” Mykhailo Podolyak said on Twitter.
Last month, Moscow staged referendums in which occupied areas of Ukraine voted in favor of being annexed by Russia. Kyiv and its allies widely rejected the results as sham votes illegal under international law.
Washington and Brussels fear that a Ukrainian attack with Western-supplied arms on the illegally annexed areas could now be used by Moscow as a pretext for further escalating the war.
By: Miriam Berger
10:31 AM: British defense secretary meets with Austin at Pentagon
© Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP
Britain's defense secretary, Ben Wallace.
British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace met with his U.S. counterpart, Lloyd Austin, in Washington on Tuesday, a trip intended to reaffirm the security relationship between the allies.
The two discussed “ongoing efforts to support Ukraine, including through the provision of security assistance, and the importance of transatlantic cooperation and regional security in light of Russia’s continued brutal attack,” the Pentagon press secretary, Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, said in a statement.
By: Leo Sands
10:17 AM: Ukraine’s allies to discuss Iranian weapons at U.N. Security Council
© Stringer/Reuters
A Russian drone is seen during a Russian drone strike, which local authorities consider to be Iranian made unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) Shahed-136, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Sunday.
The United States, Britain and France are expected to raise the issue of Iran transferring weapons to Russia at a closed-door meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday afternoon, according to diplomats familiar with the situation. The decision follows U.S. and European concerns about Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities and critical infrastructure using Iranian drones.
The drones that Russia has been deploying, Ukrainian and U.S. officials say, are manufactured in Iran, where they are known as Shahed-136s. They are designed to strike specific targets with explosives that can be delivered at distances of up to 1,500 miles. Unlike many other attack drones, they do not use weapons to destroy their targets. They are the weapon.
By: Leo Sands
10:11 AM: Russian missiles shot down over Kyiv, mayor says
Ukrainian air defenses successfully shot down Russian missiles flying over the capital Wednesday, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram. He urged residents to stay in bomb shelters while air raid sirens continued to blare across the city.
One of those who heard the capital’s air defenses blast into action was the British ambassador to Ukraine, Melinda Simmons. She described the sound of explosions and the “total calm” with which the capital’s inhabitants rushed into bomb shelters.
“Everyone here has pulled out a laptop or phone and got on with their work or they’re continuing meetings,” she said.
By: Leo Sands
10:07 AM: Photos: Cleanup continues in Kyiv after Russian strikes
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A woman arranges flowers Wednesday outside a house where a couple was killed in a Russian drone strike two days before.
Cleanup continues in Kyiv after Russian strikes damaged infrastructure and residential targets.
© Ed Ram/Getty Images
Tower 101 was damaged in a missile strike on Oct. 11 in Kyiv.
© Ed Ram/Getty Images
Workers move soil in a children's play area in Taras Shevchenko Park on Wednesday in Kyiv. A missile hit the area on Oct. 11, leaving a large crater and damaging nearby buildings.
© Ed Ram/Getty Images
The site of a missile strike that hit near Taras Shevchenko park on Oct. 9 in Kyiv.
By: Chloe Coleman
10:04 AM: Lockheed Martin plans to boost HIMARS production
© Roman Koksarov/AP
A High-Mobility Artillery Rocket System during military exercises in Riga, Latvia, last month.
Lockheed Martin plans to boost its production of HIMARS long-range rocket artillery systems from 60 launchers annually to 96, Politico reported Tuesday, citing the company’s CEO, James Taiclet, who spoke at a third-quarter earnings call.
Last month, the Pentagon said it would double its commitment of HIMARS rocket systems to Ukraine as part of a $1.1 billion aid package.
By: Leo Sands
9:52 AM: Russian attacks are causing ‘massive blackouts,’ Zelensky says
© Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters
A supermarket worker in Kharkiv installs a generator-powered light as the city suffers from an electricity outage Monday.
Russian attacks are causing “massive blackouts,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday, adding that 30 percent of the country’s power stations have been damaged by the attacks since Oct. 10.
He is set to hold a meeting Wednesday on the country’s energy system amid mounting fears of power outages in the winter.
Moscow continued attacks on Ukraine’s energy grid this week, hitting a power facility in Kyiv three times Tuesday, a presidential aide said.
Separately, Pentagon press secretary Patrick Ryder said Tuesday that rain, snow and mud would “add another level of complexity” to the battlefield this winter.
He added, “This is why … you see us continuing to work very closely with Ukraine, with our international partners and allies to identify what Ukraine’s needs are.”
By: Leo Sands
9:51 AM: Analysis from Isabelle Khurshudyan, Ukraine bureau chief
Even as Russia targets critical infrastructure facilities that provide Ukrainians with electricity and heat, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko announced Wednesday that the capital’s heating season will start on Thursday. I’ve walked around my apartment here in recent weeks bundled up as the temperatures dip, especially at night. Locals have been urged to conserve electricity to limit the strain on the damaged power grid, and part of the reason the heat is being switched on is so people don’t burn power with space heaters. But as a friend of mine in the capital told me Monday, after drone strikes that targeted a thermal station, “I’d rather wear multiple layers of clothing at home than surrender to the enemy.”
9:37 AM: Russian military leadership ‘increasingly dysfunctional,’ U.K. says
Major elements of Russia’s military leadership are “increasingly dysfunctional,” the British Defense Ministry said Wednesday.
Four of the five generals responsible for directing the Russian invasion in February have been dismissed from their posts, and there is a growing shortage of officers capable of organizing newly mobilized reservists, the ministry said.
By: Leo Sands
9:08 AM: NATO anti-drone systems to be delivered to Ukraine
NATO anti-drone systems will be delivered to Ukraine in the next few days, Jens Stoltenberg, the bloc’s leader alliance’s secretary general, said Tuesday in Berlin.
The air defenses will be capable of countering Iranian-made drones, he specified, after Ukraine accused Russia of using the weapons to barrage its capital Monday.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said he was ready to submit a “bag of evidence” to prove the drones’ origin, Reuters reported, and he proposed severing diplomatic ties with Tehran completely.
By: Leo Sands
8:54 AM: Top German cybersecurity official removed over alleged Russia ties
Germany removed its top cybersecurity official on Tuesday over allegations of links to Russia.
Arne Schönbohm will step away from his duties running the Federal Office for Information Security “with immediate effect” after he was accused of maintaining indirect contacts with Russian intelligence agents.
By: Leo Sands
8:44 AM: Russia evacuating Kherson residents amid warning of fighting in ‘very near future’
Pro-Kremlin separatist officials said the war’s front line could reach the Russian-controlled city of Kherson soon, warning that Ukraine was preparing a large offensive in the region. One pro-Russian separatist official said Wednesday morning that a fight for the city could begin in the “very near future.”
Russia’s military on Wednesday morning ordered residents to leave, Russian state media reported. At least 50,000 residents will be transported out of the city, including to Russia, as part of plans for an operation that pro-Moscow authorities say will take about a week, Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency reported.
By: Leo Sands
8:43 AM: Analysis from Isabelle Khurshudyan, Ukraine bureau chief
My colleague, Kamila Hrabchuk, and I were in the middle of a phone interview at my apartment Wednesday afternoon when we heard explosions again. We shared a glance, both of us silently calculating if that was the sound of a missile landing, air defense shooting down a drone or missile, or just loud construction.
Within a few minutes, we saw news that air-defense systems had successfully intercepted missiles over the city. This is what constitutes “normal” in the capital now. After weeks of attacks on the city center, no one is relaxed here anymore.
8:42 AM: Putin does not elaborate on what newly announced martial law will entail
In his opening remarks to a meeting with the Security Council, Russian President Vladimir Putin did not elaborate what exactly the introduction of martial law would change on the battlefield, as Russian forces are losing ground in the illegally annexed territories, including the southern Kherson region.
According to Russian law, this change gives the military a broad set of powers, including a curfew, seizure of civilian property, temporary resettlement of the population and censorship of all communications.
A presidential decree published on the official government portal during Putin’s speech also states that “in order to meet the needs of the Armed Forces,” some restrictions will be introduced in eight neighboring Russian regions, including the Belgorod and Krasnodar areas that have been caught in the middle of Moscow’s invasion and Ukrainian counteroffensive.
“The state of medium response level” was introduced in these areas, allowing Russian law enforcement to move people away from potentially dangerous areas, restrict their movement and heighten the security of critical military and infrastructure sites. Both the Kremlin and the Foreign Ministry have said that Russia doesn’t plan to shut its borders entirely following the martial law in the Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
By: Mary Ilyushina
The Washington Post
