Russia-Ukraine War: Over 1,000 Russian Protesters Arrested After Putin Mobilizes More Troops (Published 2022) (2024)

Protesters across Russia took to the streets to show their disapproval of the “partial mobilization” policy announced by President Vladimir V. Putin on Wednesday morning that would press 300,000 into military service. At least 1,252 people from 38 cities were detained, according to OVD-Info, a human rights watchdog that monitors police activity.

In Moscow, hundreds of protesters gathered on the Old Arbat, a well-known pedestrian street in central Moscow. They screamed “Send Putin to the trenches!” and “Let our children live!” Footage showed riot police dragging people away.

In Tomsk, a woman holding a sign that said “Hug me if you are also scared” smiled serenely as she was dragged away from a small protest by three police officers. In Novosibirsk, a man with a ponytail was taken away after he told police officers, “I don’t want to die for Putin and for you.”

Protest is effectively criminalized in Russia, where before this week almost 16,500 people had been detained for antiwar activity, according to OVD-Info — including the simple act of an individual standing in a public place holding a blank piece of paper. Since March, it has been illegal to “disseminate false information” about the war and to “discredit the Russian Army.”

Russians came to protest despite a warning from the general prosecutor’s office issued Wednesday that unsanctioned protests could result in punishment of up to 15 years of prison for spreading false information about the military, which became a criminal offense in February.

The jailed opposition politician Aleksei A. Navalny and the antiwar group Vesna, or Spring, both called for protests on Wednesday.

Russians have grown so accustomed to the idea of being detained that one pet shelter that funds itself by selling apparel created T-shirts showing children playing outside a school bus that is actually an AvtoZak, the vehicle riot police use to take detainees to be booked at the police station.

Mr. Putin has relied on a strategy of keeping life as normal as possible for Russians in order to to maintain a passive support for the war. While thousands protested on Feb. 24, the day Russia invaded Ukraine, law enforcement agencies were able to stifle much public dissent.

Now, the prospect of reservists being called up brings the war ever closer to ordinary people’s homes.

The draft announced by Mr. Putin could rattle the Russian public because most Russian men of military age are legally considered reservists; a year of military service is a requirement for men aged 18 to 27. Though Defense Minister Sergei K. Shoigu has said that only those with prior military experience are eligible to be drafted, some ordinary Russians fear that there could be broader conscription on the horizon, potentially creating consequences for Mr. Putin at home.

“Mobilization raises the stakes not only in war, and not only in international relations, it raises the stakes in domestic politics,” Ivan Kurilla, a professor of history and international relations at the European University in St. Petersburg, wrote on Facebook.

However, Greg Yudin, a professor of political philosophy at the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences currently at Princeton University, said while the “partial” mobilization order did not set limits to the draft, it was still “not a breach of the famous ‘you don’t mess up with our business, we don’t mess up with yours’ contract either.”

A petition against “full and partial mobilization” had gathered almost 300,000 signatures by Wednesday evening.

“I think people couldn’t pull themselves out of shock — they simply couldn’t believe that there would be a mobilization announced,” said Anastasia, 36, one of the petition’s organizers, who lives in St. Petersburg and whose last name is being withheld for security reasons. “Even yesterday we thought that it couldn’t happen,” she said, referring to the anticipation of Mr. Putin’s announcement speech, which was initially expected on Tuesday evening. “But it seems to me that today people are still in shock that it is happening. And they finally realized: ‘This concerns me, too.’”

On Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Navalny published the results of a poll his organization commissioned asking respondents how they would react to mandatory mobilization. Almost half said they disagreed.

Oleg Matsnev, Alina Lobzina, and Anton Troianovski contributed reporting.

The Ukrainian authorities have secured the release of the commanders of the Azov Battalion, whose defense of Mariupol from within a sprawling steel plant turned them into celebrities throughout Ukraine and made them a valuable prize for the Kremlin when they surrendered to Russian forces in May after an 80-day siege.

Andriy Yermak, a top adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, confirmed late Wednesday that the commander of the Azov Battalion, Lt. Col. Denis Prokopenko, and his deputy, Captain Svyatoslav Palamar, were among 215 Ukrainian prisoners of war who were released in a prisoner swap, making it the largest such exchange since the start of the war.

To free them, the Ukrainians gave up their own valuable prize: Viktor Medvedchuk, a Ukrainian businessman and politician, who is a close friend of Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin. Mr. Medvedhuk had been arrested after going into hiding while awaiting trial at the start of the war and charged with treason, according to Ukrainian officials.

For the Ukrainians, it was a price worth paying.

“President Volodymyr Zelensky gave a clear order to return our heroes. The result: our heroes are free,” Mr. Yermak said in a statement Wednesday evening. “We exchanged 200 of our heroes for Medvedchuk, who had already given all the testimony he could.”

Mr. Medvedchuk was among 55 people the Ukrainian government handed over to the Russians as part of the exchange, Mr. Yermak said. He did not give details about their identities, but a senior Ukrainian military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details of the exchange, said they included pilots and senior Russian military officers.

The official did not indicate when exactly the exchange occurred, though Ukrainian news media outlets began publishing photos late Wednesday Kyiv time of what they said were the newly freed commanders.

The exchange represents a significant victory for Mr. Zelensky, who had vowed to bring home all prisoners of war. Returning the Azov commanders in particular is likely to provide another morale boost to Ukrainian forces across the front line, and comes after Russian forces were swiftly routed in a surprising Ukrainian offensive that largely pushed them out of territory in northeastern Ukraine they occupied in the early weeks of the war.

Among the Ukrainians released in the exchange were soldiers, border guards and police officers, as well as several Ukrainian fighters who were pregnant, Mr. Yermak said. The chief of Mariupol’s patrol police, Mikhail Vershinin, who was among the defenders of Mariupol, was released, along with 10 foreigners, including two Americans, who were members of Ukraine’s foreign legion, a group of foreign fighters who have taken part in some of the bloodiest battles of the war.

Also freed were 108 members of the Azov Battalion, a unit within the Ukrainian armed forces that Russian propaganda has attempted to paint as neo-Nazis as part of the Kremlin’s justification for war.

The Azov soldiers’ defense of Mariupol, the southern Ukrainian port city decimated by Russian forces in the first months of the war, has become a source of inspiration and pride for Ukrainians, with the commanders’ likenesses displayed on billboards around the country.

For 80 days, the band of soldiers, wildly outnumbered and outgunned by Russian forces, continued to fight despite heavy losses and a severe lack of food, water and weaponry. They holed up in a warren of bunkers beneath the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works, a sprawling factory that became both a fortress and a trap, from which they ultimately failed to escape.

The decision by Ukraine’s military to order the fighters’ surrender in May was a gamble. While it saved their lives, it raised fears that the Kremlin could use them as propaganda, perhaps by staging show trials. It also sent them into punishing captivity. Soldiers released in earlier exchanges described terrible conditions, little food and regular beatings by their guards.

In July, a huge explosion ripped through a barracks where many prisoners from Azovstal had been detained, killing at least 50 of them. The Kremlin blamed Ukrainian forces for shelling the prison, offering shifting explanations for possible motives. Ukrainian officials called the assertion absurd, pointing to their repeated efforts to free the captives. Ukraine’s government accused Russia of murdering them.

Late Wednesday, Ukraine’s presidential administration released a video of Mr. Zelensky speaking with the newly freed Azov commanders, who are now in Turkey. Dressed in military uniforms and looking gaunt and underfed, the soldiers thanked Mr. Zelensky for refusing to give up on them.

“Glory to Ukraine!” Colonel Prokopenko said in the video. “Mr. President, everything is fine with us, the health conditions are acceptable. I’m thankful to you and the entire team,” he said.

Mr. Zelensky called the exchange a “great victory for our state,” but said he would continue to press for the release of all Ukrainians still in captivity.

Ten prisoners of war, including U.S. and British citizens, have been transferred to Saudi Arabia as part of an exchange between Russia and Ukraine, Saudi officials said on Wednesday.

The Saudi foreign ministry said on Twitter that Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, had mediated the release.

The timing of the release was striking, coming just hours after President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia intensified his war effort in Ukraine by announcing plans to call up roughly 300,000 reservists to fight while also taking the West to task over its support for Ukraine with a veiled threat of using nuclear weapons.

The arrest of foreigners in Ukraine has alarmed human rights advocates and Western governments, raising questions about the protections afforded to thousands of foreign-born fighters serving in the country, some of whom have been taken prisoner on the battlefield.

The released prisoners included several who had been sentenced to death in Russia-occupied eastern Ukraine.

Among those released were two Americans who had been held captive for more than three months: Alex Drueke, a former U.S. Army staff sergeant who served two tours in Iraq, according to his aunt, Dianna Shaw; and Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh, a former U.S. Marine, according to Ms. Shaw, who said she had been texting with Mr. Huynh’s family.

“We’re just so deeply grateful,” Ms. Shaw said.

Mr. Drueke and Mr. Huynh, a California native who had been living in Alabama, disappeared together when their platoon came under “heavy fire” on June 9, causing all its members to fall back except for the two of them, according to a statement from Mr. Drueke’s family. They had volunteered to fight in Ukraine and were captured near the city of Kharkiv on June 9 while fighting alongside other foreign soldiers.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said in a statement that the United States appreciated Ukraine’s inclusion of American citizens in its prisoner of war negotiations, and that he had called Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan al-Saud of Saudi Arabia to thank him for his country’s role in the exchange.

Later on Wednesday, Ukrainian officials said they had secured the release of a total of 215 prisoners, including the foreign fighters and the commanders of the Azov Battalion, who defended Mariupol from within a sprawling steel plant before surrendering to Russian forces in May. The prisoner swap is the largest such exchange since the start of the war.

Five British citizens who had been held in Ukraine by Russian-backed proxies have been released, Prime Minister Liz Truss said, calling it “hugely welcome news.” Ms. Truss thanked President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and Saudi Arabia for their help securing the citizens’ release.

“Russia must end the ruthless exploitation of prisoners of war and civilian detainees for political ends,” she said.

The Saudi ministry said it was working to return those released to their home countries, which also included Morocco, Sweden and Croatia.

Robert Jenrick, a Conservative member of the British Parliament, wrote on Twitter that Aiden Aslin was among the prisoners who was released. Mr. Aslin’s hometown, Newark, is in Mr. Jenrick’s district.

Mr. Aslin was one of three men — including Shaun Pinner, a British citizen, and Brahim Saadoun, a Moroccan — who were sentenced to death in June by a court in Russia-occupied eastern Ukraine. Prosecutors had accused the three men of being mercenaries and terrorists who were seeking to violently overthrow the government of the Donetsk People’s Republic, one of two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine that Russia has recognized.

“Aiden’s return brings to an end months of agonizing uncertainty for Aiden’s loving family in Newark who suffered every day of Aiden’s sham trial but never lost hope,” Mr. Jenrick wrote. “As they are united as a family once more, they can finally be at peace.”

One of the freed Americans, Mr. Drueke, is an avid hiker who before the war had been living on family land in rural western Alabama while hoping to plan “a new adventure” with his Mastiff rescue, Diesel, according to a previous statement by his family.

In April, before leaving for Ukraine, Mr. Huynh told WAAY-TV, an ABC affiliate in northern Alabama, that he had decided to travel to Ukraine and fight after seeing 18-year-olds fighting for their freedom.

Mr. Huynh studied robotics. He had been in the Marines for four years, entering right after graduating from high school.

“I know there’s a potential of me dying,” he told WAAY-TV. “I’m willing to give my life for what I believe is right.”

In a defiant address to the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, President Volodymyr Zelensky outlined what he called Ukraine’s “formula” for peace, calling for nations to give more support to his military and to punish Russia on the international stage.

“A crime has been committed against Ukraine, and we demand just punishment,” he said in his address, a prerecorded video that required an Assembly vote to allow.

Pointedly refusing to say the name of Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, Mr. Zelensky said that there was “only one entity among all U.N. member states who would say now, if he could interrupt my speech, that he is happy with this war.” He said that Ukraine “will not let this entity prevail over us, even though it’s the largest state in the world.”

Mr. Zelensky has for months pleaded for aid from the world in phone calls with presidents, videos to lawmakers and on social media. Speaking in English, Mr. Zelensky reiterated several of those requests — most urgently, a call for continued arms and ammunition as Ukraine wages two campaigns to reclaim territory that Russia had taken.

Describing the horrors that civilians had suffered in the war, Mr. Zelensky said that weapons, ammunition and financial support would protect lives by helping to expel Russian troops from Ukraine.

“Russia wants to spend the winter on the occupied territory of Ukraine and prepare for a new offensive: new Buchas, new Iziums,” he said, referring to towns where hundreds were found dead in the wake of Russian retreats. “Or at least it wants to prepare fortifications on occupied land and carry out military mobilization at home.”

He also urged nations to punish Russia in the United Nations, at least as long as “aggression lasts.” He said that Russia should be deprived of its veto power in the U.N. Security Council, that a special tribunal should be created to adjudicate the war and that prosecutors should seek out Russian money.

“Russia should pay for this war with its assets,” he said.

And he said countries should not be intimidated by Russia’s leverage with oil and gas supplies, calling for caps on Russian energy prices as a way to mitigate soaring energy costs.

“Limiting prices is safeguarding the world,” he said. “But will the world go for it? Or will it be scared?”

Mr. Zelensky criticized countries that have tried to avoid antagonizing Russia, saying they acted only to protect their “vested interests,” but he did so without naming names. He reserved his most castigating language for Russia itself and for the handful of nations that had sided with Russia in voting against allowing his speech to be played for the General Assembly: Belarus, North Korea and Syria among them.

He ended the address by broaching the subject of peace talks, which have stalled for months despite some progress on specific issues like grain exports and a U.N. nuclear mission.

“Probably you have heard different words from Russia about the talks, as if they were ready for them,” he said, before alluding to Russia’s efforts to call up more soldiers and to hold referendums in occupied territory. “They talk about the talks but announce military mobilization,” he said. “They talk about the talks but announce psuedo-referendums.”

He said that Ukraine, in contrast, was not just ready for talks, but for “true, honest fair peace.” The heads of state and diplomats in the audience gave him a sustained ovation after he added, “That’s why the world is on our side.”

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia accelerated his war effort in Ukraine on Wednesday, announcing a new campaign that would call up roughly 300,000 reservists to the military while also directly challenging the West over its support for Ukraine with a veiled threat of using nuclear weapons.

In a rare address to the nation, Mr. Putin stopped short of declaring a full, national draft but instead called for a “partial mobilization” of people with military experience. Though Moscow’s troops have recently suffered humiliating losses on the battlefield, he said that Russia’s goals in Ukraine had not changed and that the move was “necessary and urgent” because the West had “crossed all lines” by providing sophisticated weapons to Ukraine.

The videotaped speech was an apparent attempt to reassert his authority over an increasingly chaotic war that has undermined his leadership both at home and on the global stage. It also escalated Russia’s tense showdown with Western nations that have bolstered Ukraine with weapons, money and intelligence that have contributed to Ukraine’s recent successes in reclaiming swaths of territory in the northeast.

Mr. Putin accused the United States and Europe of engaging in “nuclear blackmail” against his country and warned that Russia had “lots of weapons” of its own.

“To those who allow themselves such statements about Russia, I want to remind you that our country also has various means of destruction, and some components are more modern than those of the NATO countries,” he said.

Mr. Putin also reaffirmed his support for referendums hastily announced on Tuesday that have set the stage for him to declare that occupied Ukrainian territory has become part of Russia. That annexation could potentially come as soon as next week.

Pro-Kremlin analysts and officials have said that at that point, any further Ukrainian military action on those territories could be considered an attack on Russia itself. Mr. Putin did not spell that out, but warned that he was ready to use all of the weapons in Russia’s arsenal to protect what the Kremlin considered Russian territory.

“If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will certainly use all the means at our disposal to protect Russia and our people,” he said. “This is not a bluff.”

​In announcing a call-up of soldiers, Mr. Putin was also responding to those in Russia who support the war but have criticized the Kremlin for not devoting the resources and personnel necessary to wage an all-out fight. Mr. Putin had previously avoided conscription in an effort to keep the war’s hardships as distant as possible from ordinary Russians, but the recent battlefield setbacks, and the drumbeat from pro-war nationalists for a more robust effort, apparently changed the calculation.

In a subsequent speech, Russia’s defense minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, put the number of new call-ups at 300,000 people, all of them with some military experience. The mobilization makes it mandatory by law for reservists who are officially called up to report for duty, or face fines or charges. Mr. Shoigu said that students would not be called up to fight and that conscripts would not be sent to the “special operation zone,” the term the Kremlin uses to refer to the war, though observers were skeptical of that claim.

Ukrainian officials called Mr. Putin’s remarks a sign of desperation. “Referendums and mobilization in the Russian Federation will not have any consequences, except for accelerating the collapse and revolution in Putin’s Russia,” said Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

President Biden, speaking to the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday morning, opened his speech by condemning Putin and accusing Russia of violating the U.N. charter.

“Let us speak plainly: A permanent member of the United Nations Security Council invaded its neighbor,” Mr. Biden said, adding later, “This war is about extinguishing Ukraine’s right to exist as a state.”

The number of Russian troops in Ukraine — including Russia-aligned separatists, members of private security companies and volunteers — does not currently exceed 200,000, according to estimates by military analysts and experts. If the partial mobilization is successful, the new recruits would more than double that amount, making it easier for Russia to defend hundreds of miles of front lines in Ukraine. However, observers say, most high-ranking personnel have already been deployed, and those called up will need further training and weapons.

Marc Santora, Ivan Nechepurenko and Alina Lobzina contributed reporting.

Some Russians on Wednesday rushed to buy one-way plane tickets out of the country or expressed interest on social media in moving after President Vladimir V. Putin ordered up reservists to bolster Russia’s military in Ukraine.

Tickets to visa-free destinations such as Istanbul; Dubai; Yerevan, Armenia; and Almaty, Kazakhstan, were either sold out for the next several days or their prices had skyrocketed.

There were no one-way tickets out of Moscow to Yerevan, Istanbul or Dubai for Wednesday on an airline ticket aggregator that is popular in Russia. Aeroflot, Russia’s national airline, had no tickets to Istanbul or Yerevan for this week, according to its website. Aeroflot operates up to eight flights per day to the two cities, according to its schedule.

Channels discussing relocations on the Telegram messaging app have been filled with messages about the border situation and possible ways to get out of the country. Some posters said that they were afraid the Kremlin could shut the border soon for men of military age.

Meduza, a Russian media outlet in exile, published a guide to countries Russians can travel to without visas.

Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, said he would not comment on whether the borders would be shut for potential recruits, asking that people wait for the law to be clarified, according to Interfax, a Russian news agency.

For months since the start of the war, Mr. Putin has avoided mandatory conscription, even a limited one, in order to preserve the sense of normalcy in Russia. However, recent Russian setbacks in Ukraine’s northeast have prompted increasingly vocal pro-war nationalists to demand the Kremlin bolster its efforts.

Some Russians also expressed anger at countries in the European Union for seeking to ban them, even those trying to escape from Mr. Putin’s war machine.

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which all border Russia, this month banned Russians from crossing into their countries by land, sealing one of the last relatively easy routes out of Russia. Latvia said Wednesday it would not issue humanitarian or other visas to Russian citizens seeking to avoid mobilization.

“So, traveling around Europe is a privilege, but fighting Ukraine is a duty,” said Ilya Krasilshchik, a Russian media entrepreneur.

“It’s great that Russian men now will not be able to enter Latvia and Estonia,” he said on Twitter. “But will go to fight against them.”

Finland, the only E.U. country with a land border with Russia that still allows Russians to cross, said that the situation at the border remained normal. The country recently cut the number of tourist visas it issues to Russians by 90 percent, to only 100 a day.

Valerie Hopkins contributed reporting.

President Biden castigated President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in an address to the United Nations on Wednesday, accusing him of seeking to extinguish Ukraine and its people and of pushing the world back toward nuclear confrontation.

Hours after Mr. Putin issued new threats to deploy Russia’s nuclear arsenal as he pursued the war in Ukraine, Mr. Biden’s speech, which was unusual in its focus on a single adversary, drew a Cold War-style contrast between Russia and the West.

Mr. Biden cast the United States and its allies as the protectors of a fragile global order that has endured since World War II, while seeking to reassert American leadership on existential issues like warming temperatures and faltering food supplies. And he portrayed Russia as the chief threat to global peace, accusing Mr. Putin of making “irresponsible nuclear threats” and warning the Russian leader against following through.

“A nuclear war cannot be won,” Mr. Biden said, “and must never be fought.”

The president opened his address by accusing Mr. Putin of violating the U.N. charter with his invasion of Ukraine this year. “Let us speak plainly,” Mr. Biden said, “a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council invaded its neighbor.” The war, Mr. Biden added, is about “extinguishing Ukraine’s right to exist as a state.”

“If nations can pursue their imperial ambitions without consequences,” Mr. Biden said, the post-World War II order crumbles. He added, “We will stand in solidarity to Russia’s aggression.”

U.S. administration officials indicated this week that Ukraine would be a central focus for Mr. Biden in his remarks. Even then, the scope and scathing nature of Mr. Biden’s attacks on Mr. Putin were startling; they appeared to be the most direct and sustained focus on a single adversary by an American president at the United Nations since 2002, when President George W. Bush called the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein a “grave and gathering danger.”

Mr. Biden had already planned to condemn Mr. Putin forcefully, even before the Russian leader announced further mobilization efforts for the war in a speech broadcast on Wednesday morning. That speech also included new threats of Moscow using nuclear weapons in Ukraine. A U.S. senior administration official said Mr. Biden had tweaked his speech only modestly after the news.

In his provocative 20-minute speech on Wednesday announcing the call-up of hundreds of thousands more Russian soldiers, President Vladimir V. Putin also insisted that his top war aim — “liberating” Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region — remained unchanged and announced his support for referendums that would see that region and other occupied Ukrainian territory become part of Russia.

A day earlier, Russian proxy officials in four regions — Donetsk and Luhansk in the east, which are collectively known as Donbas, and Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south — announced plans to hold referendums over several days beginning on Friday. Russia controls nearly all of two of the four regions, Luhansk and Kherson, but only a fraction of the other two, Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk.

U.S. officials have warned for months that Mr. Putin could use the referendums in occupied areas — which many residents have fled amid fierce fighting — to try to legitimize the illegal annexation of parts of Ukraine. If the territories are formally annexed, the Kremlin could cast further Ukrainian military action in those areas as an attack on Russian soil, and a justification for further escalation.

“Russia can’t give up on people living close by to be torn apart by executioners and fail to respond to their desire to determine their own fate,” Mr. Putin said on Wednesday, referring to Ukrainians in occupied territory, even as reports continue to emerge of torture at the hand of Russian occupying forces.

A senior State Department official told reporters on Tuesday that the United States has “made clear that there will be increased consequences” if Russian forces expand or bolster their occupation of parts of Ukraine, perhaps as a result of the planned referendums.

The official said the world has seen the United States use a range of tools in recent months to punish Russia, and insisted that allies and partners would be ready to join in any escalation, but declined to give more details.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, who was expected to address the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday, said in his nightly address before Mr. Putin’s speech aired that whatever “sham” vote is staged in occupied parts of Ukraine, his military would continue to fight to drive Russian forces from the country.

“We enjoy the full support of our partners in this,” Mr. Zelensky said. “So let’s maintain the pressure. Let’s preserve unity. Let’s defend Ukraine. We are liberating our land. And we are not showing any signs of weakness.”

Edward Wong contributed reporting.

KYIV, Ukraine — This summer, when the Russian military was still grinding out bloody gains in eastern Ukraine, the unrelenting thunder of its artillery on the battlefield underscored the vast arsenal of munitions Moscow’s army could draw on to smash its way forward.

But Russia was struggling with another vital resource: soldiers. As its casualties in Ukraine mounted, military analysts said, Moscow began to engage in what they called a “covert mobilization” aimed at creating “volunteer battalions.” State television broadcasts aired telephone numbers to call for those interested in joining the “special operation” in Ukraine. Solicitations for “contract soldiers” were widespread.

This month, a video emerged showing prisoners being recruited to fight as mercenaries in Ukraine, offering a vivid example of Russia’s desperation to replenish depleted ranks.

Even with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia’s announcement on Wednesday of a “partial mobilization,” Western military analysts, as well as current and former U.S. military officials, said it could take several weeks, if not months, for Russia to mobilize, train and equip additional combat-ready troops.

Michael Kofman, director of Russia studies at CNA, a defense research institute in Arlington, Va., said the Kremlin’s first step will likely be to call up reservist officers and others with more recent military experience to replenish badly depleted units in the field. The Russian military has been identifying such personnel for months in anticipation of Mr. Putin’s order, he said.

“Bottom line, it’s not going to change a lot of the problems the Russian military has had in this war, and the military will be limited as to how many additional forces it can deploy in the field,” Mr. Kofman said. “But it does begin to address the structural problems that Russia has had with manpower shortages.”

Crucially, Mr. Kofman said, Mr. Putin’s announcement extends indefinitely the service contracts of thousands of soldiers who signed up thinking that they would only serve several months, and enacts policies preventing them from refusing deployment to Ukraine or leaving the service.

Russia’s defense minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, asserted in his speech on Wednesday that 5,937 Russian soldiers had been killed in the fighting in Ukraine, offering the first official account of casualties since March. Western officials put the Russian casualties much higher, estimating that more than 80,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded.

Even if Moscow can mobilize reservists, the Russian military faces serious shortages in equipment, vehicles and weapons, and generating new units to replace those lost in battle might not happen until early next year, some officials said.

“It will be many months before they can be properly equipped, trained, organized and deployed to Ukraine,” said Frederick B. Hodges, a former top U.S. Army commander in Europe. “And without massive artillery support, these new soldiers will be pure cannon fodder, sitting in cold, wet trenches this winter as Ukrainian forces continue to press.”

Its struggles to mobilize enough regular troops has forced the Kremlin to rely on a patchwork of impoverished ethnic minorities, Ukrainians from the separatist territories, mercenaries and militarized National Guard units to fight the war.

In parts of the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions that Russia has occupied since 2014, conscription is mandatory for men aged between 18 and 65. Many of the frontline fighters are local recruits. Since they are Ukrainian citizens, the Kremlin is cavalier about their casualties, experts say.

Yurii Sobolevskyi, an exiled member of the regional council in Kherson, one of the occupied territories where a referendum is planned, warned on Wednesday that men of conscription age who received a Russian passport or provided their personal data to occupying forces are most at risk of conscription.

“The best way to avoid forced mobilization is to leave for Ukrainian-controlled territory,” he said. “If this is not possible, people should change the place of residence known to the occupying authorities and try to avoid crossing checkpoints and patrols.”

DRUZHKIVKA, Ukraine — The announcement by President Vladimir V. Putin on Wednesday of the mobilization of thousands of additional reservists comes as Russian forces contend with mounting battlefield setbacks and an emboldened Ukrainian military.

While Russian forces in southern Ukraine are dug in, slowing a Ukrainian offensive around the Black Sea port city of Kherson, they are struggling elsewhere. Russia’s front line in the northeast collapsed in recent weeks as poorly manned Russian defensive positions evaporated following a Ukrainian military breakthrough. Farther east, in the mineral-rich Donbas region, which Mr. Putin has pledged to capture, Ukrainian forces are holding onto what territory remains under their control and attempting to advance into occupied areas. But the Ukrainians are also being worn down after losing two strategically important cities over the summer, and as Russian forces continue to bombard frontline towns and villages.

Russia, which has the world’s second-largest military, has suffered thousands of casualties, according to some of the more modest Western intelligence estimates. Prison inmates have been sent to the front lines as cannon fodder. And despite honing artillery tactics and the use of drones, some of the most basic military skills remain lacking in Russian units.

While Ukraine seems to have the upper hand, Kyiv’s forces, too, are enduring thousands of casualties. Their Soviet-era equipment is in desperate need of replacement. And even with the influx of Western weapons and ammunition, Ukrainian forces are rarely able to match the amount of firepower Russia brings to the battlefield.

But one thing the Ukrainians seem to have in abundance, and that their Russian counterparts often struggle to match, is the will to fight.

Reactions in Russia to President Vladimir V. Putin’s announcement of a “partial mobilization” of reservists broke along ideological lines. Kremlin officials and their cheerleaders issued full-throated support while opponents — who have been largely sidelined — called the move an admission of failure and urged protests in cities across the country.

After the speech, Mr. Putin projected a business-as-usual approach, visiting an engineering university and celebrating the anniversary of Russia’s founding, but his televised address appeared to mark the beginnings of a shift in his domestic strategy in the war. For eight months, most Russians could more or less ignore the war as part of an unspoken agreement with Mr. Putin’s government that anyone who stays away from politics would be left alone.

By announcing the call-up of some 300,000 people with military experience — including former soldiers and conscripts — the Kremlin avoided, for now, a full mobilization that could provoke more public opposition. But even a partial mobilization means that many more ordinary Russians could be called to fight, and soldiers’ existing contracts will be indefinitely extended.

“The period of passive, contemplative heroism, with which the Russian political regime satisfied the self-respect of citizens, is over,” Aleksandr Baunov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote on Telegram. “Now they will be required to make sacrifices.”

The Russian antiwar movement Vesna, or Spring, invited people to mass demonstrations at 7 p.m. local time in cities across Russia’s 11 time zones and overseas in the biggest coordinated protest action since the full-scale invasion began on Feb. 24.

The call marks a test for the beleaguered antiwar movement. Such protests are in effect criminalized in Russia, and since the war began, almost 16,500 people have been detained for protesting the war, according to OVD-Info, an independent human rights watchdog. Russia’s general prosecutor issued a warning Wednesday that unsanctioned protests could result in punishment of up to 15 years of prison for spreading false information about the military, which became a criminal offense in February.

On Wednesday, according to local media, at least several dozen people protested in multiple Siberian cities. Dozens of people have been detained across Russia so far, according to OVD-Info.

Russian stocks fell sharply on Wednesday, with major indexes dropping about 4 percent, extending significant losses from the previous day. The main index for the Moscow Stock Exchange has lost more than 10 percent so far this week, and nearly half of its value this year.

But supporters of the war pointed to Mr. Putin’s speech as a strong response to the West’s arming of Ukraine, and suggested it marked an escalation. Backers of the war have been calling for a nationwide draft for weeks amid recent Ukrainian successes on the battlefield.

Olga V. Skabeeva, one of Mr. Putin’s best-known propagandists on state television, praised Mr. Putin’s veiled threat to use nuclear weapons to protect territory it sees as Russian — including four partially occupied Ukrainian regions that plan referendums on joining Russia. The West has described such votes as a sham.

“The West is now aware that an attack on Ukraine, on those lands, with the use of Western weaponry, including American or any other, will be viewed as an attack on Russia, with absolutely all the ensuing consequences,” she said on her program.

Andrey V. Kartapolov, the head of the Russian Parliament’s defense committee, advised reservists not to try to leave the country, promising that military service would be lucrative.

“If you are called, you will pay the mortgage from your new pay, which will be very high,” he said.

Analysts warned that Mr. Putin’s moves would require more repression, especially as the war goes on and Russian forces continue to struggle in Ukraine.

“Society will slowly get annoyed and indignant,” Tatiana Stanovaya, a Russian political analyst, wrote on Telegram, advising not to expect mass protests to take off. “The regime will increase repression. This is the erosion of Putin’s power in its purest form.”

Jason Karaian, Alina Lobzina, Oleg Matsnev and Ivan Nechepurenko contributed reporting.

KYIV, Ukraine — Renewed shelling at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine knocked out the power to one of the reactors on Wednesday, forcing engineers to use backup generators to keep safety equipment running until power could be restored, according to Ukrainian officials.

The Ukrainian nuclear energy company, Energoatom, said that a transformer used to power Reactor No. 6 had been damaged by shelling and that two diesel generators were switched on at 1:13 a.m. to “ensure the operation of fuel cooling pumps.”

By 2 a.m., engineers had found a way to transmit power from other sections of the station to Reactor No. 6, allowing them to turn off the diesel generators.

While all six reactors at the plant —Europe’s largest nuclear station —have been powered down as a safety precaution to prevent a nuclear disaster, vital systems are still needed for cooling and then storing spent nuclear fuel.

Ukraine and Russia have traded blame for the shelling at the plant, which has moved from one crisis to the next after being occupied by Russian forces in early March. It is controlled by Russian forces but run by Ukrainian engineers.

About a month ago, the plant was completely cut off from external power for the first time in its history, briefly plunging it into blackout and forcing the emergency diesel generators to be switched on for the first time. Engineers were able to reconnect the plant to the grid 14 hours later.

As the situation raised concerns of a nuclear catastrophe, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, dispatched a team to the plant led by the agency’s head, Rafael Mariano Grossi.

His team called for a safe zone to be established around the plant and for an end to shelling in and around it. Ukraine and its Western allies have called for the creation of a demilitarized zone around the plant, something Moscow has rejected.

Even though the U.N. agency left two monitors on site, shelling did not stop. A fire at the plant on Sept. 5 caused by shelling severed all external power lines. Reactor No. 6, the plant’s last working reactor, had to keep operating to power the cooling and other crucial safety equipment.

Once external power was re-established almost two weeks later, a decision was made to power down the reactor, putting the entire station into “cold shutdown,” its safest state. But cooling is still essential.

After the plant was reconnected to the national power grid last week, the situation appeared to have stabilized momentarily. The shelling on Wednesday appeared to not affect the plant’s connection to external power, but only the power transmission within the reactor unit itself.

Mr. Grossi said the latest shelling demonstrated the urgent need for a safe zone around the plant. “Until yesterday, there seemed to be less shelling at or near the plant, but this latest episode shows that the danger remains very real,” he said in a statement. “It hasn’t gone away, and we can’t afford to lose any more time.”

The use of diesel generators is the last fail-safe operation for engineers. There are 20 diesel generators at the plant with enough fuel to keep the cooling systems at all six reactors and the spent fuel pools running for 10 days. But they have not been tested to run for more than a day, and keeping them fueled could be a challenge.

As the situation at the Zaporizhzhia plant remains the focus of global concern, a missile strike near another Ukrainian nuclear power plant about 160 miles west also raised new alarms this week. A powerful Russian missile exploded less than 900 feet from the reactors of the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant, a stark reminder that Russia can still threaten disaster at any of Ukraine’s four active nuclear plants.

As Western leaders blasted President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Wednesday for calling up about 300,000 reservists for his war effort in Ukraine, China issued a more cautious response, reflecting a desire to distance itself from Russia’s invasion even while trying to maintain a strong partnership with Moscow.

“China’s stance on the Ukraine crisis has been consistent and clear,” Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said at a regular news briefing in Beijing, the Chinese state-run media reported. “We call on all the parties involved to reach a cease-fire through dialogue and negotiations.”

“We also hope that the international community will create the conditions and room to bring this about,” he added.

At the start of talks with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, in Uzbekistan last week, Mr. Putin said that China had “questions and concerns” about Russia’s war in Ukraine, appearing to nod to qualms in Beijing about the direction that the fighting has taken. But Mr. Xi also sees Russia as a vital counterweight to the United States.

On the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, which is meeting this week in New York, Antony J. Blinken, the U.S. Secretary of State, denounced what he called Mr. Putin’s “utter contempt and disdain for the United Nations, for the General Assembly, for the United Nations Charter.”

Ben Wallace, Britain’s defense minister, said in a statement that Mr. Putin, who has avoided declaring a draft, was breaking “his own promises not to mobilize parts of his population,” adding that the move was an “admission” that Mr. Putin’s invasion was failing.

Mr. Putin and his defense minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, “have sent tens of thousands of their own citizens to their deaths, ill-equipped and badly led,” Mr. Wallace said. “No amount of threats and propaganda can hide the fact that Ukraine is winning this war.”

Peter Stano, the European Commission’s spokesman for foreign affairs, told reporters that Mr. Putin’s speech was further “proof that Putin is not interested in peace, that he’s only interested in escalating this war of aggression.”

Latvia, a European Union member that borders Russia, condemned the move and said that it would not issue humanitarian or other visas to Russian citizens seeking to avoid mobilization. Latvia’s foreign minister, Edgars Rinkevics, said on Twitter that the military threat to Latvia was still low, but that officials there would consult with allies.

“Russia is as dangerous to Europe and the world’s peace today as Nazi Germany was in the last century,” he said.

Finland, the only E.U. country with a land border with Russia that stills allows Russians to cross, may tighten its visa policy, according to its minister of defense, Antti Kaikkonen.

Edward Wong and Christopher F. Schuetze contributed reporting.