Martial law, which comes into force at midnight, imposes strict military controls over the occupied areas of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia, and bestows broad powers of arrest and detention on Russia’s military and proxy authorities.
The decree of martial law follows 10 days of sustained airstrikes and drone attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure in what marked a clear shift in strategy by Moscow, aiming to compensate for battlefield losses with superior long-range missile power and a vast fleet of Iranian-made attack drones.
Together the developments confront Kyiv and its Western backers with yet another test of their resolve. NATO powers, including the United States have promised to rush additional air defense systems to Ukraine, hoping to thwart Russia’s goal of leaving the country without electricity or heat as winter looms.
In declaring martial law, which he announced during a meeting of Russia’s security council Putin said that he would also be establishing a new coordinating committee over the areas under restriction, to be led by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.
Russia does not fully control the four regions it claims to have annexed, and Ukrainian forces have made substantial territorial advances in recent weeks to reclaim previously occupied territories.
Russia, however, has to date routinely arrested, jailed, tortured and killed Ukrainians in areas it has occupied, and is accused of multiple war crimes.
Putin’s announcement came as Russian proxy officials in Kherson said they had begun relocating around 50,000 people out of Kherson city, after the Russian military commander in charge of the war on Ukraine warned the situation in the city was difficult.
With Russian officials predicting a major Ukrainian assault on the city, Col. Gen. Sergei Surovikin, announced as commander of the Russian assault on Ukraine earlier this month, said that he could not rule out “difficult decisions.”
“Our plans and actions regarding the city of Kherson will depend on the unfolding military-tactical situation. I would like to reiterate that it is quite difficult today,” Surovikin said in an interview on state television.
It was not clear whether the difficult decisions could entail a military retreat from the city, or a large-scale battle should Ukraine forces attack.
Ukraine troops have been advancing slowly in Kherson region in recently weeks, destroying bridges and cutting supply lines, in particularly pressuring Russian forces on the west bank of the Dnieper River. The Russians, while pushed back, appeared to be making a more orderly, strategic retreat than they did last month in the northeast Kharkiv region, where they fled haphazardly, abandoning vehicles and equipment.
Russia was using ferries and buses to move people from Kherson on Wednesday and stopped civilian vehicles from entering the city. The Kherson region forms a crucial part of Putin’s much-coveted “land bridge” from mainland Russia to Crimea, the peninsula that Russia invaded and annexed illegally in 2014.
Kherson is a key strategic city for Russia — the capital of one of four territories that were illegally annexed by Putin, and its loss would be a major blow to Russia’s war aims.
Russian officials and its proxies in Ukraine warned on Wednesday that Ukrainian forces could bombard or flood the city, and sent out text messages instructing people to leave.
Throughout the war, however, Russia has repeatedly launched major attacks on cities such as Mariupol and Kharkiv, ruthlessly hitting civilian targets, destroying apartment blocks, and vital infrastructure such as electricity. Attacks on civilian infrastructure, which has no military purpose, is a war crime.
Despite the evidence in recent weeks of Russian forces surrendering, retreating or refusing to fight, Surovikin claimed that it was the Ukrainian forces marshaled against Kherson who had low morale.
He claimed Russia’s strategy was to “take care of every soldier and methodically grind the advancing enemy” and to avoid civilian casualties. A Moscow proxy official in Kherson, Kirill Stremousov, said Russia would not retreat from Kherson.
“We are not going to surrender the city. We will stand to the end,” Stremousov said on Wednesday, adding that Russia was turning the city into a fortress, comments that implied a long, bitter battle for the city.
Mary Ilyushina and Natalia Abbakumova in Riga, Latvia, contributed to this report.
