The Kremlin rebuffed talk on Tuesday of a nationwide military draft in Russia, a politically risky proposal that has gained prominence in public discussion in the wake of Russian forces’ rapid reversals in northeastern Ukraine.
Speaking with journalists, Dmitri S. Peskov, President Vladimir V. Putin’s spokesman, said that the potential for a mobilization “is not being discussed at the moment.”
The statement reflected the Russian government’s difficulty maintaining control over debate as recent defeats have brought increased criticism, including from usually supportive conservative and nationalist voices.
Russian political figures and commentators have been calling on Mr. Putin to get tougher in Ukraine by bolstering the Russian Army with recruits and by targeting Ukraine’s key civilian infrastructure.
“Russia has the right to plunge Ukraine into the stone age,” wrote Oleg Tsaryov, a pro-Russian former deputy of the Ukrainian Parliament who fled the country in 2014.
Others accused the Russian military leadership of poor strategy and coordination for the defeats, which have led Russia to yield hundreds of square miles of occupied territory within days. Some suggested the best course was now to sue for peace.
Though the Kremlin has taken measures to bring in more recruits, analysts say Mr. Putin has strained to avoid the sort of mass mobilization that helped fuel a backlash against previous conflicts such as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
After the invasion of Ukraine, the Russian government introduced a law that effectively bans all public discussion of the war that deviates from the official interpretation of events. So far, those charged or punished have mostly been pro-Western liberals.
On Tuesday, Mr. Peskov responded to the latest round of criticisms with a warning.
“The people are consolidated around the decisions that are made by the head of state,” he said. “As far as other points of view, critical points of view, as long as they remain within the law, this is pluralism. But the line is very, very thin — one must be very careful there.”
Source : Nytimes
