The last war between Russia and Ukraine: what we know on day 214 of the invasion | Ukraine

More than 730 people have been arrested across Russia in the recent protests against the country’s mobilization decree, A rights group said, three days after the president Russian President Vladimir Putin He ordered the country’s first military conscription since World War II. Independent protest monitoring group OVD-Info said it was aware of arrests in 32 cities, from St Petersburg to Siberia. Unauthorized rallies are illegal under Russian law, which also prohibits any activity that is a defamation of the armed forces.

He signed a new law put it in He says Russian forces who refuse to fight, flee, disobey or surrender to the enemy may now face up to 10 years in prison., according to Russian media reports. The law was approved by the House of Representatives during the week.

Russian Deputy Defense Minister Dmitry Bulgakov was removed from his post. Bulgakov, who has been in charge of military logistics since the beginning of Ukraine the invasion He was replaced by Colonel Mikhail Mizintsev, head of the National Defense Administration Center, who oversaw Russia’s siege of Mariupol.

Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, addressing the United Nations General Assembly on SaturdayOpposition to the Russian attack on its neighbor as it is limited to Washington and the countries under its influence. “The official fear of Russia in the West is unprecedented. Now the scale is hideous. He criticized the West for not dealing with Russia, saying, ‘We have never shied away from maintaining contact.”

Lavrov said, at a press conference after his speech to Parliament in New York, that the Ukrainian regions where voting operations are taking place. They would be under the “full protection” of Moscow if Russia annexed them, including with nuclear weapons.

The so-called referendums are underway In the provinces of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, areas of Ukraine occupied by Russian forces, where residents were asked to vote on proposals to declare independence and then join Russia. The elections are scheduled to continue until Tuesday.

China’s foreign minister said she supports all efforts leading to a peaceful solution to the “crisis” in Ukraine. Reuters reported that Wang Yi told the UN General Assembly on Saturday that the urgent priority was to facilitate peace talks.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry said that Iran regrets Ukraine’s decision to downgrade diplomatic relations. A statement said that Iranian Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani had “advised” Ukraine Refrain from being influenced by third parties that seek to destroy relations between the two countries. This came after Ukraine stripped Iran’s ambassador of his accreditation over what it described as Tehran’s “unfriendly” decision to provide Russian forces with drones.

The line at the Russia-Georgia border is about 10 kilometers (six miles) long., where people are reported to wait more than 20 hours to cross. The number of border crossings from Russia In Finland, it has doubled in recent days compared to last week.

Kyiv and Moscow blamed each other for the bombing of the Zaporizhzhya region in Ukraine on Saturday. The regional governor, Oleksandr Staruch, said on Telegram That Russian forces launched an “intense missile strike” on the area from about 10 aircraft, injuring at least three people. The official Russian Information Agency, citing unnamed sources, said that Ukrainian forces bombed a grain depot and fertilizer stores in the area. Reuters was unable to verify either side’s claims.

Two civilians were killed in attacks in Donetsk region, Ukraine On Friday, three were wounded, according to Pavlo Kirilenko, the governor of the Donetsk region. Russian forces also bombed settlements near the Russian border. In the Kobian region, five people were injured by the bombing, including two children aged 10 and 17.

It is alleged that the Russian authorities in the occupied Zaporizhia and Kherson regions began distributing notices and mobilizing men From the age of enlistment “he gave up Ukrainian citizenship and obtained passports from the Russian Federation,” according to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry.

President Volodymyr Zelensky asked Ukrainians in the occupied territories to hide from Russian mobilizationHe avoided letters of conscription and went to the territory controlled by Ukraine. However, if they ended up in the Russian army, Zelensky asked people to save their lives and help liberate Ukraine.

Russian forces may try to attack the dams in Ukraine In order to flood the Ukrainian military crossing points Amid Russian concerns about setbacks on the battlefield, came the latest British Defense Ministry briefing. It added that the strikes were unlikely to have caused significant disruption to Ukrainian operations due to the distance between the damaged dams and the combat zones.

Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report