- Total War Developer Creative Assembly Apologises to Its Community, Issues Partial Refunds for Pharaoh IGN
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- Total War Dev Apologizes Amidst Community Backlash, Drops Price Of Total War: Pharaoh GameSpot
- Total War: Pharaoh dev drops the price on the strategy game, deletes its deluxe editions, partly refunds all players, and gives paid DLC out for free Gamesradar
- Creative Assembly apologise for “mistakes” with Total Warhammer 3 and Pharaoh, offering part-refunds and free DLC Rock Paper Shotgun
Tag Archives: partial
One week after partial collapse of I-95 in Philadelphia, commuters hold out hope for temporary lanes on highway – WPVI-TV
- One week after partial collapse of I-95 in Philadelphia, commuters hold out hope for temporary lanes on highway WPVI-TV
- I-95 collapse one week later: Detours, traffic continue to impact businesses as repairs continue CBS News
- Businesses still feeling impacts one week after I-95 collapse CBS Philadelphia
- I-95 collapse: Local businesses, neighbors express optimism as rebuilding progresses rapidly FOX 29 Philadelphia
- One week after partial collapse of I-95, commuters look forward to completed highway 6abc Philadelphia
- View Full Coverage on Google News
One week after partial collapse of I-95, commuters look forward to completed highway – 6abc Philadelphia
- One week after partial collapse of I-95, commuters look forward to completed highway 6abc Philadelphia
- I-95 collapse one week later: Detours, traffic continue to impact businesses as repairs continue CBS News
- Businesses still feeling impacts one week after I-95 collapse CBS Philadelphia
- One week after partial collapse of I-95 in Philadelphia, commuters hold out hope for temporary lanes on highway WPVI-TV
- I-95 collapse: Local businesses, neighbors express optimism as rebuilding progresses rapidly FOX 29 Philadelphia
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Johnson begins feeling shock from partial schedule’s lack of seat time – RACER
- Johnson begins feeling shock from partial schedule’s lack of seat time RACER
- 2011 Coca-Cola 600 | Kevin Harvick relives amazing victory after Dale Jr. runs dry NASCAR
- NASCAR Cup Series at Charlotte: Rain washes out Saturday running, William Byron on pole based on rulebook Yahoo Sports
- Rain puts Kyle Busch behind the 8-ball. But there’s a reason why he loves the Coke 600 Charlotte Observer
- NASCAR qualifying results: Live updates as starting lineup set for 2023 Coca-Cola 600 in Concord, North Carol… DraftKings Nation
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Congress averts partial government shutdown with short-term funding bill
House lawmakers averted a partial government shutdown on Wednesday night after approving a short-term funding bill that will last through Dec. 23.
The one-week extension was approved in a 224-201 vote, with all congressional Democrats and nine Republicans voting in favor of it.
The exterior of the U.S Capitol is seen during the second day of orientation for new members of the House of Representatives in Washington, D.C., on Monday, November 14, 2022.
(Sarah Silbiger for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
The short-term bill will give lawmakers one week to hammer out the details of a long-term spending bill of roughly $1.7 trillion dollars.
CONGRESS ACHIEVES ‘FRAMEWORK’ FOR OMNIBUS SPENDING BILL TO AVERT GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN
Once a compromise is reached, the bill will go before the Senate for a vote, then to President Biden to become a law.
Overwhelmingly, Republican lawmakers oppose the short-term extension, complaining it would allow for a big spending bill to be passed just before Republicans take over the House, according to the Associated Press.
The House approved a short-term funding bill that will keep the government open until Dec. 23 while lawmakers work on a long-term solution.
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Republicans had pushed for a short-term funding bill to keep the government open through the middle of January, at which point the Republicans would seize control of the House and have more leverage on spending negotiations.
CAN CONGRESS WRAP A COMPLETE BUDGET BEFORE CHRISTMAS, OR WILL THEY NEED A NEW YEAR’S (CONTINUING) RESOLUTION?
House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., announced late Tuesday the framework that provides a path forward to enact an omnibus next week was in place, and now the appropriations committees from both the House and Senate will work to negotiate the details.
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Her Senate counterpart, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said they worked with retiring Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., to achieve “a bipartisan, bicameral framework that should allow us to finish an omnibus appropriations bill that can pass the House and Senate and be signed into law by the President.”
Fox News’ Chad Pergram contributed to this report.
Salman Rushdie lost partial vision, use of hand after attack, rep says
“So, it was a brutal attack,” Wylie said in the interview, adding that the injuries were “profound.”
Wylie declined to say whether Rushdie remains in the hospital, explaining that he could not give any information about the author’s whereabouts.
“He’s going to live,” Wylie told the paper, adding, “That’s the more important thing.”
Wylie’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Washington Post on Sunday.
Around 11 a.m. on Aug. 12, Rushdie had just taken his seat onstage for an interview at the Chautauqua Institution when a man ran onto the stage and attacked Rushdie and his interviewer, Henry Reese, who suffered a facial injury that required a short hospitalization. Rushdie, who police said had been stabbed in the neck and abdomen, was airlifted to a hospital and put on a ventilator.
In the following days, after Rushdie had been taken off the ventilator, Wylie told The Post that Rushdie’s injuries were severe. He told the Associated Press that Rushdie suffered damage to his liver and to nerves in one arm, adding that the author might lose an eye.
Hadi Matar, a 24-year-old New Jersey man, was arrested in the attack and charged with attempted murder and assault. He has pleaded not guilty.
After the 1988 publication of Rushdie’s fourth novel, “The Satanic Verses,” Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini denounced the novel’s treatment of Islam as blasphemous and issued a fatwa, or religious decree, calling for Rushdie’s assassination. A $1 million bounty was put on his head — an amount that would grow to more than $3 million over the years.
Rushdie went into hiding for years. Bookstores that sold the novel were attacked. Two translators of the book — one Italian and one Japanese — were the victims of separate stabbings in 1991. The Japanese translator, Hitoshi Igarashi, died. Even after Khomeini died and Iran’s leaders later distanced themselves from the fatwa, it remained a threat to Rushdie. He told The Post in 1992 that he wasn’t sure he’d ever be safe, though in recent years Rushdie made public appearances without visible guards.
Iran denied involvement in the August attack. In an interview with the New York Post, Matar would not say whether he was inspired by the fatwa, but he praised Khomeini and told the paper that he was surprised Rushdie survived.
In the interview published Saturday, Wylie told El País that, in the past, he and Rushdie had spoken about how the fatwa continued to pose a danger, especially from “a random person coming out of nowhere and attacking” him.
“So, you can’t protect against that,” Wylie told the paper, “because it’s totally unexpected and illogical.”
When is October’s partial solar eclipse and who can see it?
On Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022, just six days before Halloween the moon will pass in front of the sun creating a partial solar eclipse. The sun will appear as if a huge bite has been taken from it depending on where observers are located across the globe.
The partial eclipse will be visible in the northern hemisphere in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Guernsey in the United Kingdom and will be at its most extreme in the north pole and Russia.
Unfortunately, this partial solar eclipse on Oct. 25 won’t be visible in the U.S.
Related: Solar eclipse guide 2022: When, where & how to see them
Occurring between around 5 a.m. and 9 a.m. EDT (0900-1300 GMT) about 82% of the sun’s disk will be obscured by the moon‘s shadow at the event’s maximum — known as the point of central eclipse.
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During this particular eclipse nowhere on Earth will experience a total solar eclipse. This is because during the Oct. 25 eclipse the moon and the sun will not be perfectly aligned and as a result, the moon will not completely cover the sun. Instead, the sun will appear to take a crescent shape, almost as if a bite has been taken out of it.
Eclipses happen when the moon passes between the Earth and the sun and casts a shadow on part of the planet either fully or partially blocking the light from the sun. Solar eclipses are never visible across the entire planet because the moon is much smaller than the Earth and its shadow is only a few hundred miles wide.
The point of central eclipse where any eclipse is at its maximum is the point on Earth where an imaginary line connecting the centers of the sun and the moon meets our planet’s surface. Observers from this point see the moon directly centered on the middle of the sun.
This point isn’t fixed during an eclipse, however. As the moon continues in its orbit its shadow sweeps across the planet at between 1,000 and 5,000 miles per hour taking the point of central eclipse with it.
As a total eclipse proceeds, the point of central eclipse moves across the surface of Earth from west to east. During a partial eclipse, like the one at the end of October, this point either passes above the north pole or below the south pole and doesn’t cross the Earth’s surface.
That means only the edge of the moon’s shadow falls on Earth explaining why the sun doesn’t get completely eclipsed.
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On Oct. 25 the point of central eclipse will pass over the north pole where 82% of the sun will be eclipsed. From Russia up to 80% of the sun will be eclipsed, this proportion drops to 70% in China, 63% in Norway, and 62% in Finland.
NEVER look at the sun with binoculars, a telescope or your unaided eye without special protection. Astrophotographers and astronomers use special filters to safely observe the sun during solar eclipses or other sun phenomena. Here’s our guide on how to observe the sun safely.
Regular sunglasses are not sufficient to use while observing the sun. Observers hoping to view the eclipse should use solar viewing or eclipse glasses. If these aren’t available another, indirect viewing method such as using a pinhole projector to project sunlight on a surface.
Looking to photograph the partial solar eclipse? Our How to photograph a solar eclipse explains what it takes to capture one of nature’s most spectacular sights.
Russian men flee Putin’s partial mobilization order for war in Ukraine
But maybe it didn’t matter. “The main task is to save your life,” he said, as he picked at peanuts from a plastic dish. The avalanche of men fleeing Russia “don’t know what to do next,” he said.
President Vladimir Putin’s announcement last week of a “partial” military mobilization of Russian reservists for his war in Ukraine set off a frenzied dash for the country’s borders by tens of thousands of men affected by the order — but also many who simply assumed that their government, desperate for troops, would conscript any man who could carry a gun.
The mobilization is a risky and unpopular decision, bringing home the grim reality of the war to many Russians who were previously apathetic supporters of the invasion, or quiet opponents. Putin, normally cautious about stirring dissent, promised in March not to mobilize Russians to fight. But after major setbacks in Ukraine, including the humiliating Russian retreat in the Kharkiv region, he has broken that promise.
The emerging scale of the exodus has raised questions about Russia’s ability to sustain its war effort. And as Russian men venture beyond its borders, and the restrictions imposed by Putin’s government, they are providing a glimpse of alienation and unease spreading back home.
Many have fled to Kazakhstan, according to the country’s Interior Ministry, which said nearly 100,000 Russians had entered the country since Putin announced the call-up on Sept. 21. At least 10,000 have crossed into Georgia each day — double the amount before the mobilization, according to authorities there.
And thousands have flown to Turkey, always a popular tourist destination for Russians and now a hub for its exiles, who have arrived on packed commercial flights over the past week and even on chartered planes, with some paying thousands of dollars to secure a seat, according to passengers.
The construction worker, who like others interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concern for family members still in Russia, took the long way out. He flew from the Russian city of Sochi to Tajikistan on Sept. 23, and then to Uzbekistan. Early Tuesday morning, he flew to Istanbul, from where he was planning on traveling on to the southern Turkish resort city of Antalya, long a favorite among Russian visitors.
Back home, he had not waited to receive a letter summoning him for military service. And, in any case, his complaints ran deeper than the mobilization.
“I do not support my government, but I cannot do anything to change the situation. If you have another view from them and if you protest or write about this, you go to jail,” he said.
Like other men who had fled, he fretted for family members left behind. His mother, he said, “is nervous and stressed for me.” His visa in Turkey only allows him to stay for two months, but that was a problem for later.
A 32-year-old man who arrived in Istanbul on Tuesday said he left behind his wife and 1-year-old son. “Of course it was a very difficult decision,” said the man, an ethnic Ukrainian who said he was born and has lived his entire life in Russia.
The government, he said, was enlisting men “en masse.” Neighbors and friends had been called up. “I had no choice. I can’t go to war and kill people in Ukraine. And if I stayed, there was no other option.” He and his wife decided he should leave on the day Putin announced the mobilization.
“In one day, I quit my job, took the money from the bank, took my wife and the baby to my parents. My entire life is breaking apart,” he said.
For most of the Russians traveling to Kazakhstan, the first stop is the Kazakh city of Oral, 160 miles south of Samara, the nearest Russian city with an airport. Lukpan Akhmedyarov, a local investigative journalist, said he took a Russian woman and her 19-year-old son into his apartment, with hotels and rental apartments fully booked.
The city is full of thousands of young Russian men of military age wandering around with their cellphones in their hands, dragging or carrying their bags, he said. “They all look very confused and lost. They look like a person who did something very unexpected for himself and he doesn’t know what to do next. They don’t look happy. And they are very, very quiet.”
Volunteers have set up a welcome tent near the central railway station, he said, offering newly arrived Russians free SIM cards, meals, water and hot drinks. Several local cafes, now open all night, allow Russians to stay if they have nowhere else to go.
The movie theater in town did the same, and 200 people are sleeping there each night, Akhmedyarov said. Others are sleeping at the local mosque, he added.
Many of the new arrivals had to spend three days in a queue of cars on the border, compared with just a few hours on the first two days after the mobilization was announced. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said Tuesday that his country would welcome Russians on the run, calling their situation “hopeless” and saying they were “forced to leave.”
“This is a political and humanitarian issue,” he said.
Some Russians who fled after the mobilization announcement said they considered leaving earlier but decided to save up first, hoping the situation might improve. Others simply delayed a decision that would result in an indefinite separation from family and home.
A 33-year-old filmmaker said he and his wife had actually decided to get out before the war, as Russia’s economy worsened and the threat of conflict loomed. After Russia invaded Ukraine, their conviction hardened: The wife’s relatives lived near Kyiv, under Russian bombardment, and the couple recoiled at Moscow’s propaganda about routing what it called “Nazis” from Ukraine, he said.
In the spring, the couple started the process of applying to travel to the United States on a talent visa for artists, but still hoped they could take their time leaving Moscow, he said.
Then the mobilization announcement came. The filmmaker was not among those slated to be called up, but “we understood they will take everyone who they can catch,” he said, referring to the government.
“We understood, me and all my guy friends, this is it, the moment. If you hoped to save your business or career in Russia, it’s all gone. Now you have to think about your life.”
His mother sent him a text message on Sept. 21, he said. “You have to go now,” she wrote. “You can’t wait.”
He and his wife discussed what to do for about half an hour, and then he started trying to book his ticket out of Russia. “It was a legendary process,” he said. “You enter the dates, you choose where to go, you push the button to buy and you can’t. At this moment another 20 people are trying to buy the same ticket.” He finally found a seat on Monday and flew to Istanbul.
“I am not sad at this moment,” he said. “Maybe I have some feelings — not for the country, for some places, for some people. For my family, for my grandparents — I will not see them again. I am not sad about the country. Now the country is in a horrible condition.”
On the day of the mobilization announcement, Sergei, a 26-year-old technician from Moscow, threw his passport and essential clothes into a bag, borrowed money from friends, bought a plane ticket and headed straight to the Moscow airport. He was on one of the first flights out.
“I was in complete shock,” he said, speaking in a telephone interview from the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, where he was searching for work.
“Of course I knew our government is unpredictable, but I hoped that mobilization would not happen. I had a feeling of sadness and confusion. I was at a loss. Now I hope that none of my friends who are still in Russia will be drafted. I’m really scared for them,” he said.
Although he left behind his parents, grandmother and family pets, he has no plans to return, and is trying to decide where he may eventually settle.
“The problem is that an old, weird generation is at the top in our country,” he said. “They think differently from us and we can’t do anything about them. We went to protest, but nothing happened, and now people are very afraid.”
Few of the men who are fleeing Russia now will ever go back, he predicted, and the exodus would affect the country for years to come.
“Of course, the best people are leaving,” he said.
Dixon reported from Riga, Latvia. Natalia Abbakumova contributed reporting from Riga.
Putin orders partial military call-up, sparking protests
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a partial mobilization of reservists Wednesday to bolster his forces in Ukraine, a deeply unpopular move that sparked rare protests across the country and led to almost 1,200 arrests.
The risky order follows humiliating setbacks for Putin’s troops nearly seven months after they invaded Ukraine. The first such call-up in Russia since World War II heightened tensions with Ukraine’s Western backers, who derided it as an act of weakness and desperation.
The move also sent some Russians scrambling to buy plane tickets to flee the country.
In his 14-minute nationally televised address, Putin also warned the West that he isn’t bluffing about using everything at his disposal to protect Russia — an apparent reference to his nuclear arsenal. He has previously rebuked NATO countries for supplying weapons to Ukraine.
Confronted with steep battlefield losses, expanding front lines and a conflict that has raged longer than expected, the Kremlin has struggled to replenish its troops in Ukraine, reportedly even resorting to widespread recruitment in prisons.
The total number of reservists to be called up could be as high as 300,000, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said. However, Putin’s decree authorizing the partial mobilization, which took effect immediately, offered few details, raising suspicions that the draft could be broadened at any moment. Notably, one clause was kept secret.
Despite Russia’s harsh laws against criticizing the military and the war, protesters outraged by the mobilization overcame their fear of arrest to stage protests in cities across the country. Nearly 1,200 Russians were arrested in anti-war demonstrations in cities including Moscow and St. Petersburg, according to the independent Russian human rights group OVD-Info.
Associated Press journalists in Moscow witnessed at least a dozen arrests in the first 15 minutes of a nighttime protest in the capital, with police in heavy body armor tackling demonstrators in front of shops, hauling some away as they chanted, “No to war!”
“I’m not afraid of anything. The most valuable thing that they can take from us is the life of our children. I won’t give them life of my child,” said one Muscovite, who declined to give her name.
Asked whether protesting would help, she said: “It won’t help, but it’s my civic duty to express my stance. No to war!”
In Yekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth-largest city, police hauled onto buses some of the 40 protesters who were detained at an anti-war rally. One woman in a wheelchair shouted, referring to the Russian president: “Goddamn bald-headed ‘nut job’. He’s going to drop a bomb on us, and we’re all still protecting him. I’ve said enough.”
The Vesna opposition movement called for protests, saying: “Thousands of Russian men — our fathers, brothers and husbands — will be thrown into the meat grinder of the war. What will they be dying for? What will mothers and children be crying for?”
The Moscow prosecutor’s office warned that organizing or participating in protests could lead to up to 15 years in prison. Authorities have issued similar warnings ahead of other protests. Wednesday’s were the first nationwide anti-war protests since the fighting began in late February.
Other Russians responded by trying to leave the country, and flights out quickly became booked.
In Armenia, Sergey arrived with his 17-year-old son, saying they had prepared for such a scenario. Another Russian, Valery, said his wife’s family lives in Kyiv, and mobilization is out of the question for him “just for the moral aspect alone.” Both men declined to give their last names.
The state communication watchdog Roskomnadzor warned media that access to their websites would be blocked for transmitting “false information” about the mobilization.
Residents in Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, appeared despondent about the mobilization as they watched emergency workers clear debris from Russian rocket attacks on two apartment buildings.
“You just don’t know what to expect from him,” said Kharkiv resident Olena Milevska, 66. “But you do understand that it’s something personal for him.”
In calling for the mobilization, Putin cited the length of the front line, which he said exceeds 1,000 kilometers (more than 620 miles). He also said Russia is effectively fighting the combined military might of Western countries.
Western leaders said the mobilization was in response to Russia’s recent battlefield losses.
President Joe Biden told the U.N. General Assembly that Putin’s new nuclear threats showed “reckless disregard” for Russia’s responsibilities as a signer of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Hours later, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged world leaders at the gathering to strip Russia of its vote in international institutions and its U.N. Security Council veto, saying that aggressors need to be punished and isolated.
Speaking by video, Zelenskyy said his forces “can return the Ukrainian flag to our entire territory. We can do it with the force of arms. But we need time.”
Putin did not attend the meeting.
Following an emergency meeting of European Union foreign ministers Wednesday night, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell promised more sanctions on Russia over its escalation of the Ukraine conflict. He said he was certain there would be “unanimous agreement” for sanctioning both Russia’s economy and individual Russians.
“It’s clear that Putin is trying to destroy Ukraine. Hes trying to destroy the country by different means since he’s failing militarily,” Borrell said.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny said the mobilization means the war “is getting worse, deepening, and Putin is trying to involve as many people as possible. … It’s being done just to let one person keep his grip on personal power.”
The partial mobilization order came two days before Russian-controlled regions in eastern and southern Ukraine plan to hold referendums on becoming part of Russia — a move that could allow Moscow to escalate the war. The votes start Friday in the Luhansk, Kherson and partly Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions.
Foreign leaders are already calling the votes illegitimate and nonbinding. Zelenskyy said they were a “sham” and “noise” to distract the public.
Michael Kofman, head of Russian studies at the CNA think tank in Washington, said Putin has staked his regime on the war, and that annexation “is a point of no return,” as is mobilization “to an extent.”
“Partial mobilization affects everybody. And everybody in Russia understands … that they could be the next wave, and this is only the first wave,” Kofman said.
Shoigu, Russia’s defense minister, said only some of those with relevant combat and service experience will be mobilized. He said about 25 million people fit that criteria, but only about 1% of them will be mobilized.
It wasn’t clear how many years of combat experience or what level of training soldiers must have to be mobilized. Another clause in the decree prevents most professional soldiers from terminating their contracts until after the partial mobilization.
Putin’s mobilization gambit could backfire by making the war unpopular at home and hurting his own standing. It also concedes Russia’s underlying military shortcomings.
A Ukrainian counteroffensive this month seized the military initiative from Russia and captured large areas in Ukraine from Russian forces.
The Russian mobilization is unlikely to produce any consequences on the battlefield for months because of a lack of training facilities and equipment.
Russian political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin said it seemed “an act of desperation.”
“People will evade this mobilization in every possible way, bribe their way out of this mobilization, leave the country,” he said.
He described the announcement as “a huge personal blow to Russian citizens, who until recently (took part in the hostilities) with pleasure, sitting on their couches, (watching) TV. And now the war has come into their home.”
In his address, Putin accused the West of engaging in “nuclear blackmail” and cited alleged “statements of some high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO states about the possibility of using nuclear weapons of mass destruction against Russia.”
He did not elaborate.
“When the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, to protect Russia and our people, we will certainly use all the means at our disposal,” Putin said.
In other developments, relatives of two U.S. military veterans who disappeared while fighting Russia with Ukrainian forces said they had been released after about three months in captivity. They were part of a swap arranged by Saudi Arabia of 10 prisoners from the U.S., Morocco, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Croatia.
And in another release, Ukraine announced early Thursday that it had won freedom from Russian custody of 215 Ukrainian and foreign citizens, including fighters who had defended a besieged steel plant in the city of Mariupol for months. Zelenskyy posted a video showing an official briefing him on the freeing of the citizens, in exchange for pro-Russian opposition leader Viktor Medvedchuk and 55 others held by Ukraine.
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Yesica Fisch in Kharkiv contributed to this story.
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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
What does Putin’s partial military mobilization mean for Russia and Ukraine?
What does partial mobilization mean?
Partial mobilization is a term for when specific groups of people will be called up to serve in Russia’s armed forces. It is different from a general mobilization, which involves drafting from the general population, refocusing the entire economy and essentially setting the whole country on a warpath, hitting a pause on normalcy.
How many Russian reservists will be called up by Putin?
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Wednesday following Putin’s address that Russia would call as many as 300,000 reservists to military service. Russians have reportedly already begun to receive notices summoning them to appear for service.
Shoigu said the country’s “mobilization resource amounts to 25 million people, and a little more than 1 percent of this number falls under partial mobilization” as ordered by Putin.
If true, this is a significant increase: Russia is believed to have invaded Ukraine with about 150,000 troops in late February — so an additional 300,000 is more than double that. While it’s unclear how exactly the reservists would be deployed, Putin’s move follows reports of heavy troop losses in Ukraine. It would be the first military mobilization in the history of modern Russia.
Outside estimates of the number of reservists available to Russian military leaders vary. The Institute for the Study of War, a U.S.-based think tank that closely tracks the war in Ukraine, previously said Russia has more than 2 million reservists, including former conscripts and contract soldiers. However, “few are actively trained or prepared for war,” the ISW said. Only about 10 percent of them receive ongoing training after they complete their basic military service, it added.
Under Putin’s “partial mobilization,” several groups of people are entitled to avoid being called up: students, parents with four or more small children, people essential to crucial industry operations and caregivers, among others.
How significant is Putin’s partial mobilization?
Rob Lee, a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Eurasia program, characterized Wednesday’s announcement as “one of the most significant/riskiest political decisions Putin has ever made.”
In the short term, Lee wrote on Twitter, the partial mobilization of reservists and new measures to forcibly extend the contracts of volunteers currently serving in Ukraine “could be enough to prevent a collapse of Russian forces. Otherwise, Russia’s manpower issues could have become catastrophic this winter when many short-term volunteers likely would not sign another contract.”
“But the war will now increasingly be fought on the Russian side by people who do not want to be there,” Lee added, likely fueling a lack of morale and unit cohesion among Russian forces.
Reserves are essential components to many countries’ war efforts. For example, nearly half of U.S. service members deployed to both Afghanistan and Iraq over the past 20 years reportedly came from the National Guard and reserves, and those groups took about 18 percent of the casualties.
Russia’s reservists are not nearly as well organized as the U.S. National Guard and reserve troops, according to Dara Massicot, a senior policy researcher with the RAND Corporation. “They’re calling them up out of cold storage, basically,” she said.
Why would Russia need a partial mobilization?
Moscow is facing a significant troop shortage, despite recent recruitment efforts that have included enlisting prisoners and sending volunteers to the front lines with little training, analysts said. “Putin likely hopes to improve Russian force generation capabilities by calling on the Russian people to volunteer for a war to ‘defend’ newly claimed Russian territory,” the Institute for the Study of War said of the annexation plans.
Shoigu said Wednesday that Moscow has lost 5,937 soldiers in the war — the first official casualty figure that Russia has given since the end of March, when its Defense Ministry claimed that 1,351 soldiers had died. Shoigu’s speech, coming on the heels of Putin’s partial mobilization, highlights an apparent contradiction between the relatively low casualty count claimed by the Kremlin and its move to call up reservists.
Western intelligence agencies estimate the Russian death toll to be far higher. “There’s no perfect number,” CIA Director William J. Burns told the Aspen Security Forum in July. “I think the latest estimates from the U.S. intelligence community would be … something in the vicinity of 15,000 killed and maybe three times that wounded, so a quite significant set of losses.”
Colin Kahl, U.S. undersecretary of defense for policy, said last month that “the Russians have probably taken [70,000] or 80,000 casualties in less than six months,” a number that includes soldiers who were killed and wounded in combat. “That number might be a little lower, a little higher, but I think that’s kind of in the ballpark, which is pretty remarkable considering that the Russians have achieved none of Vladimir Putin’s objectives at the beginning of the war,” Kahl said.
Who within Russia will be called up to serve?
According to Putin and Shoigu, the mobilization will affect Russians who served in the military and are now listed as reservists, as well as those who have military occupations, which could include medical workers and various technical specialists. “Only citizens who are currently in the reserve and, above all, those who served in the armed forces, have certain military specialties and relevant experience will be subject to conscription for military service,” Putin said Wednesday, adding that they will receive “additional military training.”
Russian law experts note that the cap of 300,000 people announced by Shoigu can be revised upward if necessary, as the decree issued by the Kremlin is broad — most likely on purpose, to allow for reinterpretation.
In a move likely to inflame tensions within Russian society, the head of the Russian parliament’s defense committee, Andrei Kartapolov, said the geographic distribution of reservists would be based on population size, meaning that the most populated regions of the country, including the capital, Moscow, would have to send the highest number of soldiers. “Each [region] of the Russian Federation receives a distribution order based on its capabilities,” Kartapolov said Wednesday.
How long will soldiers have to serve under partial mobilization?
The Kremlin did not specify Wednesday how long reservists called up under the partial mobilization would have to serve — and the presidential decree is light on details. “The decree does not give any details of mobilization and is formulated as broadly as possible, so the President leaves it at the discretion of the Defense Minister,” Pavel Chikov, a lawyer who leads the Agora International Human Rights Group, wrote on Telegram.
Putin’s decree also automatically prolongs existing soldiers’ contracts “until the end of the period of mobilization,” barring them from leaving the front lines indefinitely. This would potentially affect thousands of men who already signed short-term contracts as part of a nationwide recruitment campaign largely viewed as a “shadow mobilization” that sought to replenish losses over the summer without officially acknowledging that the operation requires a wider effort.
How will the partial mobilization work?
Chikov, the human rights lawyer, said the process will start with reservists receiving their mobilization orders. This has already begun happening: Four people in different Russian cities told The Washington Post they have either received the summons or saw officers hand them to their colleagues or relatives. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk freely.
“These are men who have served in the army and have signed a contract to stay in the reserve,” Chikov said, adding that the next wave of orders will affect reservists falling into three categories depending on their age and rank.
According to Chikov, the Defense Ministry will form quotas for mobilization for each of the 85 regions of Russia, and officials there will be responsible for implementing the quotas. Last week, several regions backed a proposal from the head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, to “self-mobilize” by pledging to send volunteer units with 1,000 soldiers to the war.
How did Russians react to the partial mobilization announcement?
Small antiwar protests broke out across Russia, including in Moscow, following Putin’s announcement. Hundreds of demonstrators were arrested, according to independent Russian protest-monitoring group OVD-Info.
Rumors of a military mobilization first spread in Russia in February and March — in the early stages of what the Kremlin continues to call its “special military operation” in Ukraine — and led to a mass exodus of Russians, who fled to nearby Turkey, Georgia and Armenia.
Following Putin’s address Wednesday, Russian airfare aggregators reported that all direct flights from Moscow to the few visa-free destinations still available to Russians had sold out within minutes. Much of the discussion on Russian social media revolved around possible ways to flee the country.
Some Russians seeking to avoid being called up will find other countries’ borders shut to them: On Wednesday, the foreign minister of Latvia, a member of the European Union that shares a land border with Russia, said his country “will not issue humanitarian or other types of visas to those Russian citizens who avoid mobilization,” citing security concerns.
Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics also said Latvia will press forward with restrictions on border crossings for most Russian nationals with Schengen visas, which the country announced this month along with fellow Baltic nations Estonia and Lithuania.
The E.U. has already banned Russian flights from E.U. airspace and recently agreed to suspend a visa facilitation accord with Russia, making it more difficult and expensive for Russian tourists to get visas.
It is not immediately clear whether Russia’s own borders will be shut for all potentially eligible Russians or just to those who already received a summons. The Kremlin on Wednesday afternoon declined to comment on that, saying only that “clarifications will be available later.”
Rachel Pannett, Claire Parker, Emily Rauhala and Beatriz Ríos contributed to this report, which has been updated.