Kyiv: On September 21, President Vladimir Putin ordered a Russian mobilization to fight in Ukraine and made a thinly veiled threat to use nuclear weapons. Defence Secretary Sergei Shoigu said 300,000 people would be mobilised out of a pool of 25 million. In his televised address, Putin effectively announced plans to annex four Ukrainian regions, saying Moscow would facilitate referendums in Ukraine’s Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions on joining Russia.
