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Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the latest escalation of his war in Ukraine on Wednesday, declaring martial law in occupied areas of Ukraine and wartime measures throughout much of Russia.
Ukrainian officials said the order would not deter their efforts to retake occupied territory, but warned it could mean mass deportations of Ukrainians out of the occupied regions, and harsher treatment for those that remain.
Experts said the order could also be a “back door” to pull more of Russian society into the war effort, strengthening Putin’s footing for future offensives but weakening his claim that the “special military operation” in Ukraine is not a full-fledged war.
“This is a big deal because in effect what Putin is doing is actually bringing all the Russian Federation into some level of martial law,” said Mark Galeotti, an honorary professor at the University College London’s School of Slavonic and East European Studies.
“In terms of sort of shifting to a sort of model of national mobilization of every aspect of politics, society and economics, you know, this is definitely a move that up to now Putin has been trying to avoid.”
While the martial law order mainly applies to the four occupied regions of Ukraine — Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson — it also announced the “economic mobilization” of eight Russian regions on Ukraine’s border, including occupied Crimea.
And the final section says that “other measures may be applied in the Russian Federation during the period of martial law.”
What it means for Ukraine
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office was quick to minimize the significance of Putin’s order.
“‘Martial law’ implementation on the occupied territories by [Russia] should be considered only as a pseudo-legalization of looting of Ukrainians’ property by another ‘regrouping,’” Mykhailo Podolyak, a Zelensky adviser, wrote on Twitter.
“This does not change anything for Ukraine: we continue the liberation and de-occupation of our territories,” he continued.
