On Facebook and in the media, the Ministry of Defense is increasing calls for emergency enlistment in these Territorial Defense Forces, an institution created in 2015 to supplement the regular army.
“ They handed out the guns, loaded them for us and here we are “, says Yuri Kortchemniï who had never held a weapon in his life before joining a battalion of civilians on Thursday ready to defend Kiev step by step against the Russian enemy. In the midst of the Russian invasion of his country, when the first Russian forces infiltrated the capital in less than 48 hours, the 35-year-old historian no longer hesitated. Dozens of men from his neighborhood came like him the next day to pick up a Kalashnikov at the announced distribution point, a military truck filled with boxes of weapons, he told AFP.
On Facebook and in the media, the Ministry of Defense multiplies the calls for emergency enlistment in these brigades of the “ territorial defense », an institution created in 2015 to supplement the regular army. According to the British daily The Guardian, nearly 10,000 weapons were reportedly distributed in Kiev in 24 hours.
President Volodymyr Zelensky decreed on Thursday evening the general mobilization and the recall of reservists aged 18 to 60 within 90 days in all Ukrainian regions, i.e. around 900,000 people. It remains to be seen whether these reserve forces are sufficiently equipped and trained to be able to play an effective operational role, in support of the 200,000 active Ukrainian soldiers. ” We ask citizens to inform us of enemy movements, make Molotov cocktails, neutralize the occupier! called the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense on its Facebook page.
The Ukrainian president also invited Europeans with military experience to travel to Ukraine on Friday to fight the Russian army, accusing their leaders of responding too “slowly” to the invasion.
Zelensky plans night attack on Kiev
From now on, it is enough to be between 18 and 60 years old and a passport to enlist. No training is required. ” We were given weapons at the military registration office. Now the situation is such that we can’t wait for a summons explains another volunteer, Volodymyr Moguila.
Dressed in jeans, tracksuits, trainers or mismatched uniforms, civilian “territorial defense” volunteers are now omnipresent in Kiev, even more visible in number than regular force soldiers. Sign of recognition: a small yellow armband, sometimes a simple round of tape, around the left arm. In an almost ghost town, the omnipresence of these volunteer brigades is obvious, further indicates Agence France-Presse.
The noose of the Russian army is tightening dangerously on the Ukrainian capital, and everyone is preparing for bloody battles. In the evening, President Volodymyr Zelensky also alerted his country via a video address: ” We cannot lose the capital. I address our defenders, men and women from all fronts: tonight the enemy will use all their forces to break through our defenses in the most vile, harsh and inhuman way. Tonight they will try to seize from Kyiv.
But for the moment the Russian enemy, although present around the city, still remains invisible despite the first furtive fights in the Obolon district on Friday morning, north of Kiev.
“I don’t want the same fate as Russia”
The volunteers of the territorial defense of this district found themselves in spite of themselves in the first line of this first battle. Many Ukrainians answered the call. Valery Shyrokov is one of them. The 46-year-old Franco-Ukrainian arrived in Kiev on Wednesday evening to visit his sick parents. But the next morning, he woke up in a country at war. He decided to enlist to defend his homeland.
” I am a citizen of Ukraine. I have values, I believe in human freedom, I don’t want the same fate that Russia is going through. “And when asked if he hesitated before committing:” No, no, no, not for a second. It has to be done. I would do the same for France. »
Valery Shyrokov received a weapon on Friday. He can now be called upon to intervene at any time.
First fighting in the capital Kyiv was reported on Friday, the day after Russia launched a massive attack on Ukraine. Exchanges of fire and explosions were heard in particular in the Obolon district and deaf detonations from the center of the city. For Joseph Henrotin, researcher at the Center for Analysis and Forecasting of International Risks (Capri), the resistance that the Ukrainians are opposing to the Russian offensive seems to rule out a lightning conquest of Kiev.
” Russia is meeting with some resistance. The Ukrainian army, as we can see, has the will to resist. The Ukrainians blew up a number of bridges which could have been used by the Russians. At the same time, a number of Russian special forces groups that were infiltrating Kiev using Ukrainian army uniforms appear to have suffered a number of casualties. »