By Geoffrey Smith
Investing.com -- Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday imposed martial law on four regions of Ukraine that he annexed earlier this month, in the latest sign that the situation on the battlefields in the east and south of the country is deteriorating.
In addition, Putin raised the state of alarm in Crimea and six Russian provinces bordering Ukraine, in an apparent response to the increased willingness of Ukrainian forces to retaliate beyond their borders to the Russian missile and drone strikes that have badly damaged the energy grid and other civilian infrastructure over the last 10 days.
The new rules will limit movement into and out of those regions, while also giving governors more powers to set their local economies on a war footing.
Some Russian social media accounts also claimed that the decree would formally allow Putin to order newly mobilized conscripts into the war zone, at a time of increased reports of resistance to such orders. A draftee from the former Soviet Republic of Tajikistan killed at least 11 people at the weekend at a barracks in the border town of Belgorod, after refusing to be sent to fight in Ukraine.
The moves come on the same day that the Russian-appointed governor of the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson began the evacuation of civilians, as well as administration staff, from the regional capital, in anticipation of a Ukrainian attack on the city.
"The whole administration is already moving today," to the left bank of the Dnieper River, Volodymyr Saldo said on Russian state television.
The intention is to evacuate some 60,000 people to areas of Ukraine still under Russian control, he added.