Key Points
- More than 1,300 people have been arrested at demonstrations across Russia.
- Protesters have been rallying against Vladimir Putin's announcement of a partial mobilisation of civilians to fight in Ukraine.
More than 1,300 people have been arrested at demonstrations across Russia against President Vladimir Putin's announcement of a partial mobilisation of civilians to fight in Ukraine, a police monitoring group said.
The OVD-Info monitoring group counted at least 1,332 people detained at rallies in 38 different cities across the country after Mr Putin's morning address to the nation on Wednesday.
The protests were the largest in Russia since demonstrations that broke out following the announcement of Moscow's military intervention in Ukraine in February.
AFP journalists in Moscow said at least 50 people were detained by police wearing anti-riot gear.
In Saint Petersburg, AFP reporters saw police surround a small group of protesters and detain them one by one, loading them onto a bus.
Protesters were chanting: "No mobilisation!"
Russian police officers, one of them with letter "Z" on his uniform, a symbol of support of the military invasion in Ukraine, detain a man at an anti-war protest in Moscow. Credit: Getty Images
"I came to say that I am against war and mobilisation," Oksana Sidorenko, a student, told AFP.
"Why are they deciding my future for me? I'm scared for myself, for my brother," she added.
An activist holding anti-mobilisation poster during an unsanctioned protest rally on 21 September 2022, in Moscow, Russia. The sign "Net mogilizacii", written in Cyrilic means "No burialization". Credit: Getty Images
"As soon as they really understand, they will come out onto the street, despite the fear," she said.
The Interfax news agency quoted the Russian interior ministry as saying it had quashed attempts to "organise unauthorised gatherings".
All the demonstrations were stopped and those who committed "violations" were arrested and led away by police pending an investigation and prosecution, it added.
Russia counts many former conscripts as reservists and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said the country would initially mobilise some 300,000 reservists from a potential pool of 25 million.
Mr Putin, in a televised address, warned Moscow would use all available military means in Ukraine, but the "partial mobilisation" decree gave no clue as to who would be called up.
Flights out of Russia were nearly fully booked this week, according to airline and travel agent data on Wednesday, in an apparent exodus of people unwilling to join the conflict.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy urges world to punish Russia
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged world leaders to strip Russia of its vote in international institutions and its United Nations Security Council veto, saying that aggressors need to be punished and isolated.
Mr Zelenskyy began his speech by video to the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the partial mobilisation of reservists.
"So long as the aggressor is a party to decision-making in the international organisations, he must be isolated from them," Mr Zelenskyy said.
As a permanent member of its most powerful entity, the Security Council, Russia was able to veto a demand to stop its attack on Ukraine days after it began.
Mr Putin's decree on Wednesday about the partial mobilisation was sparse on details. Officials said as many as 300,000 reservists could be tapped.
Australia condemns Vladimir Putin's nuclear threat
Australia has branded the Russian president's threats to use nuclear weapons as unthinkable and irresponsible.
President Vladimir Putin warned the West he was prepared to use Russia's vast nuclear arsenal to defend its territory, declaring: "It's not a bluff."
Foreign Minister Penny Wong called on Russia to withdraw from Ukraine.
"We saw Mr Putin making threats to use all means at his disposal," Senator Wong told reporters in New York.
"These threats are unthinkable and they are irresponsible. Claims of defending Russia's territorial integrity are untrue."
Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham has called on the government to provide expeditious assistance to Ukraine, and rejected the Russian president's comments.
"He continues to base his claims in relation to Russia's illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine on falsehoods," he told the ABC.
"It's in the interests of all nations, be they big or small, or from all corners of the world to see Ukraine succeed in defending its sovereignty."
What has the US reaction been to Vladimir Putin's speech?
US President Joe Biden accused Mr Putin of "shamelessly" violating the UN Charter and castigated him over the threat to use nuclear weapons, warning that "a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought."
"Just today, President Putin has made overt nuclear threats against Europe," Mr Biden said in his address to the annual UN General Assembly, lambasting Mr Putin's "irresponsible" stance.
President Putin's mobilisation order came as 10 prisoners of war - including two from the United States and five from the UK - were freed as part of an exchange between Russia and Ukraine.
But the diplomatic breakthrough did little to lower the temperature as Western leaders voiced outrage at Mr Putin's latest moves - and Moscow's plan to stage annexation referendums this week in Russian-held regions of Ukraine.
Donetsk and Lugansk in the east and Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south are holding votes over five days beginning Friday - ramping up the stakes in the conflict by allowing Moscow to accuse Ukraine of attacking supposedly Russian territory.
On the sidelines of the UN gathering, French President Emmanuel Macron urged the world to "put maximum pressure" on Mr Putin, whose decisions "will serve to isolate Russia further."
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz denounced the call-up as "an act of desperation" in a "criminal war" he said Russia could not win.
The announcements by Moscow this week came with Russian forces in Ukraine facing their biggest challenge since the start of the conflict.
During a sweeping Ukrainian counter-offensive in recent weeks, Kyiv's forces have retaken hundreds of towns and villages.
In a rare admission of military losses from Moscow, Mr Shoigu said on Wednesday 5,937 Russian soldiers had died in Ukraine since the launch of the military intervention in February.
Ukrainian soldiers on an armoured personnel carrier on their way to the frontline against Russian troops in the Donetsk region. Source: AFP / (Photo by ANATOLII STEPANOV/AFP via Getty Images)
