Russia reinforced its fighting force on November 1, 2022 with an annual fall draft of 120,000 men, and doubled the number of civilians it's trying to evacuate in anticipation of a major Ukrainian push to recapture the strategically vital southern port city of Kherson.
Russian military officials have assured that conscripts to be called up over the next two months will not be sent to fight in Ukraine, including to the Kherson region, three other Ukrainian areas that Russia recently illegally annexed or to Crimea, which the Kremlin made part of Russia in 2014.
However, the US-based Institute for the Study of War said the Russian Defence Ministry “is attempting to deceive the Russian population into believing that autumn conscripts will not be sent to fight in Ukraine, likely to prevent draft dodging.” This year's fall draft was delayed because of an extraordinary partial mobilisation of 300,000 reservists that President Vladimir Putin ordered on September21 specifically to bolster his Ukraine invasion force.
While Russian officials have declared the partial mobilszation complete, critics have warned it could resume after military enlistment offices are freed up from processing fall conscripts.
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday that 87,000 of 300,000 reservists have been deployed for combat in Ukraine and that 3,000 military instructors with fighting experience in the country are training them.
Reports suggest that many of the mobilised reservists are inexperienced, were told to procure basic items such as medical kits and flak jackets themselves, and did not receive proper training before deployment. Some were killed within days.
After Mr. Putin's order, tens of thousands of men fled Russia to avoid serving in the military.
Some of the fresh troops have reportedly been sent to Kherson, on the 1,100-kilometre (684-mile) front line. Russian-installed authorities in Kherson, fearing a major Ukrainian counterattack, on Tuesday reported relocating 70,000 residents, and they expanded an evacuation area to people living within 15 kilometres (9 miles) of the Dnieper River.
The region's Kremlin-appointed governor, Vladimir Saldo, said the relocation of an additional 70,000 residents from the expanded evacuation zone would be completed this week and claimed it was ordered because Kyiv “is preparing a massive missile strike on the Kakhovka hydroelectric station" to flood Kherson.
Ukraine's military on Tuesday described the new evacuations as “forced displacement” and said the Kherson regional administration had been relocated to Skadovsk, 100 kms (62 miles) south of the city of Kherson.
In addition to the Kremlin's military draft, it moved on another front to bolster its forces. Authorities in Belarus on Tuesday approved the creation of two joint troop training centers with Moscow on the territory of the east European country, which borders Ukraine. Russia has previously used Belarus, its long-standing and economically dependent ally, as a springboard to send troops and missiles into Ukraine. Kyiv fears the Belarusian army could be drawn directly into the war.
Elsewhere, concerns about radiation figured in two developments.
Experts from the United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency inspected two Ukrainian sites that Russia identified as involved in its unfounded claims that Ukrainian authorities planned to set off radioactive “dirty bombs” in their own invaded country.
International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi said the inspections for evidence of “dirty bombs” would be completed soon.
Russia's UN ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, claimed in a letter to the UN Security Council members last week that Ukraine's nuclear research facility and mining company “received direct orders from (President Volodymyr) Zelenskyy's regime to develop such a dirty bomb.” Western nations have called Moscow's repeated claim “transparently false.” Ukrainian authorities dismissed it as an attempt to distract attention from alleged Russian plans to detonate a dirty bomb as a way to justify an escalation of hostilities.
A second radiation concern involves fighting near Europe's largest nuclear power plant. The IAEA has stationed monitors at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, where a radiation leak could have catastrophic consequences.
The Ukrainian president's office said on Tuesday that cities and towns around the plant experienced more heavy shelling. In Nikopol, a city which faces the plant from across the wide Dnieper River, more than a dozen apartment buildings, a kindergarten, and businesses were damaged, the office said.
Ukraine was still grappling with the consequences of Monday's massive barrage of Russian strikes, which disrupted power and water supplies. Ukraine's state energy company, Ukrenergo, said seven regions would experience rolling blackouts to protect the system.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said authorities restored electricity and running water in the capital's residential buildings but that rolling power outages would continue. Kyiv region Gov. Oleksiy Kuleba said on Tuesday that 20,000 apartments remained without power.
In Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, subway service was suspended again on Tuesday, according to the subway's Telegram page. No reason was given.
Separately, ships loaded with grain continued to depart Ukraine on Tuesday despite Russia's suspension of its participation in a UN-brokered deal to deliver critical food supplies to countries facing hunger.
The UN said three ships carrying 84,490 metric tons of corn, wheat and sunflower meal left through a humanitarian sea corridor.
