Alghadeer TV Alghadeer TV
Russian President Vladimir Putin says 50,000 servicemen of mobilized Russian troops are now serving with the combat units in Ukraine, nearly nine months after Russia began a military operation in the ex-Soviet republic.
During a visit to the Tver region, outside the capital Moscow, on Monday, the Russian leader said that currently 80,000 Russian forces were “in the zone of the special military operation” in Ukraine and that the rest of the roughly 320,000 draftees were at training camps in Russia.
Moscow commenced a “special military operation” in neighboring Ukraine on February 24, with the declared aim of “de-Nazifying” the country. Since the onset of the operation, the United States and its European allies have imposed waves of economic sanctions against Moscow while supplying large consignments of heavy weaponry to Kiev over Russian objections.
“We now have 50,000 in their combat units. The rest are not taking part in the fighting yet,” Putin added on Monday, as quoted by Interfax, some two months after he announced a “partial mobilization” drive to call up hundreds of thousands of new fighters for the war.
The decision to partially mobilize is “fully adequate to the threats we face, namely to protect our homeland, its sovereignty and territorial integrity, to ensure the security of our people and people in the liberated territories,” Putin said in September.
Last week, the Russian president announced that a total of 318,000 had been called-up in the draft.
