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Kremlin-watchers have been left baffled by the last-minute cancellation of a major announcement by Vladimir Putin aimed at turning the tide of war following weeks of embarrassing setbacks.
The Russian president was expected on Tuesday to order a full mobilization of forces and unveil his plan to annex parts of Ukraine currently held by his troops.
What would have been his first address to the Russian people since the launch of his invasion was scheduled for live broadcast at 6pm UK time, but more than two hours later there was still no word of it appearing.
A former Nato military chief said the unexplained delay was a sign of chaos behind the scenes, with real questions remaining over whether the Russian war machine was up to enforcing Putin’s plan.
Pro-Kremlin propagandists then appeared to suggest his speech had been postponed, although an official confirmation had yet to be issued late on Tuesday night.
The editor of Russian state media news outlet RT, Margarita Simonyan, simply wrote go to sleep in a message on social media.
Sergei Markov, a Russian political scientist who used to be a close adviser to President Putin, said the address was delayed until tomorrow.
Experts believed the 69-year-old would set the stage for Moscow to formally absorb Russian-held Ukrainian territories into its control.
Earlier in the day, four regions occupied by the invaders announced plans to stage referendums over the coming week on whether they should become part of Russia.
Puppet leaders in an area covering 15% of Ukraine are expected to brazenly rig the votes in favor of joining as republics of the Russian Federation, which technically have their own constitutions but are wholly ruled by the Kremlin.
Ukraine’s allies have united in decrying the plan, which Nato and the White described as sham referendums.
Blasting it as a travesty, Frances President Macron said: Russia has declared war, invaded the region, bombarded it, killed people, made people flee, and now its going to hold referendums.
If it wasn’t so tragic, we would laugh. Its cynical and therefore it won’t be reconciled by the international community.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg added: Sham referendums have no legitimacy and do not change the nature of Russia’s war of aggression.
Meanwhile, the Russian parliament passed bills introducing the concepts of mobilization and wartime into Russian criminal law.
The reforms, which dramatically increased punishments for deserting in those circumstances, have been seen as a sign that Putin is paving the way for mass conscription of civilian men.
Western intelligence sources say Russia and Ukraine are roughly level in troop numbers but that the defenders are streets ahead in terms of morale.
General Sir Richard Shirreff, a former deputy Supreme Allied Commander of Nato, told Sky News: Lets be realistic. Mobilizing one to two million men is going to take an enormous amount of military resourcing.
You cant just mobilize individuals and expect them to be trained, capable, professional soldiers able to take their place in a very bitter, nasty, high-intensity war.
There are real questions as to whether the Russian army has got the training base.
We have already seen that the Russian army is effectively a criminal, kleptocratic, corrupt and totally incompetent even if brutal and deadly organization and I think there is a very high chance that a mobilization might fail.
Two of the Ukrainian territories planning to hold referendums, Donetsk and Luhansk, broke away in 2014 and have been run as police states by Moscow-funded thugs calling themselves Peoples Republics.
Votes will also be held in Kherson and parts of Zaporizhzhia, southern regions seized by the invaders this summer where Putin’s grip is less tight.
The so-called referendums, due to start on Friday and conclude on Wednesday, were all announced in the space of just a day, prompting experts to speculate that they were tightly choreographed by Moscow.
The timing of the announcement and Putin’s speech were said to be attempts to seize the limelight from the UN General Assembly in New York, the first in-person meeting of 180 global leaders in the three years since the start of the pandemic.
Putin will be one of the few leaders of member states not to attend the gathering, instead sending diplomats in protest at Russia being suspended in April.
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